I have signed up to walking 1000 miles this year!
I’ve never done anything like this ever before but Mark signed up to a free monthly Country Walking magazine and there it was: the challenge to walk 1000 miles in a year.
I’ve been trying to walk every day during the past year and I found a circular route that took me up out to the fields and away from the traffic. Its become my walk and as we journey to Easter it will be one year from when I first walked it. Doing the same walk means following the change in seasons, the sunsets and sun rises, the horizontal rain, snow, ice and lots and lots of mud.
Last April, through an opportunistic conversation about garden plants, I have found a new friend and walking partner from the flats next door and we have been venturing out, whatever the weather, at least once a week very early before work.
Walking has kept me going. Clearing my head from screens, processing work challenges, praying for others, phoning friends and family or just walking and listening to nature’s sounds and silencing my own noise.
Walking has always been part of my life, from family camping holidays in the Lake District when I was a child, to taking our own family camping and putting our walking boots on.
I can still hear the ancient words “Are we nearly there yet?” This yearning takes on a new meaning for us all this year.
I pray these words on my walks, silently in my heart daily, as we all turn our faces to the future where we can see each other, hug each other and be together.
I don’t know if Jesus covered 1000 miles in a year but he did a lot of walking! As we step into Lent this week, let’s walk in the steps of the one we follow opening ourselves to having eyes to see new signs of life, finding new company on the way and the hope that comes from the rising of the Son.