A Hidden Place

There is an extensive network of bike paths stretching across my county, built mostly on top of old railroad lines and named the Prairie Path. From the house where I grew up, we only had to bike a few blocks to hop onto the path and begin our well-worn route; up the hill, over the bridge, down again, take a left turn and finish with a loop back through town. Countless family bike rides wore that route deep into my brain, every section memorized and packed with memories.

Since I ended up attending college in my hometown, it was not long before I realized how little I had actually traveled on other branches of the path and grasped its extensive reach. I soon found myself exploring new sections, surprised by its ability to quickly take me to places that felt “other”, foreign, totally new; a coveted feeling for a college girl who did not have a new world to explore. I discovered beautiful destinations previously unknown to me that then became precious and personal sanctuaries, sacred spaces for my soul.

Years later, I ended up living in a house five minutes and a couple turns from my childhood home. This new home was not only appealing because of its location on a quiet dead-end street, but also because this street sat right next to a main crossway of that very beloved Prairie Path.

So I began walking and biking on that familiar friend again.

In fact I soon realized the most direct route from my new home to my old, where my mother still lives, was to take the path instead of the main roads.

And I was shocked.

That exact stretch of path, less than one mile long, was somehow one that I never remembered exploring in my entire life. It cut directly through the marsh I always considered the “beautiful part” along my daily drives. It offered an entirely new perspective, an up-close look at the tall grasses and towering trees that always compelled me to turn and look from the window of my car.

But there was more.

Along that surprisingly unknown little stretch of the path, there was an entrance jutting off to more paths and boardwalks, ones that meandered even further into the marsh and surrounding forests. I had driven around and gazed at this marsh for as long as I could remember, completely unaware I could actually enter into it. And ironically this all sat no more the two minutes from the important turn in the family bike ride route; the most familiar part of the entire network of the Prairie Path.

When I enter into the marsh, I feel like I have entered an entirely new world. It almost feels magical. As I leave the main path and walk further in, the world connected to it starts to fade. Within minutes of walking out my door, I am transported far away from the streets and scenes in which I have lived far longer than I ever imagined.

Right there in the middle of all the overlooked places, the worn familiar spaces of my life, right there is where I found something that actually shocked me. The most special of places. Staggering beauty.

That hidden world has become the backdrop of some of the most intimate and sweet communions with God. There have been times in that place that I will never be able to adequately describe. They were spent with the One who knows the truly hidden, the unexplainable parts of my heart. They were spent with the only One who can ever know those parts.

God somehow kept that place tucked away from me for over twenty years.

But not because He wanted to keep something good, something beautiful from me as if to make those years less than in any sort of way. No, I think He was purposefully saving it.

Like being given a box of letters someone has unknowingly written for years and years. A gift like that demonstrates a kind of love I find breathtaking.

He knew what that would mean to me...

And that’s the type of gift He had always planned for me.

Like each time you tear open a new letter from that box, feeling it in your hands, and marveling at the kind of love that existed when you did not even know it… the love that created the letter you now hold.

That’s what it feels like each time I walk back into that place…

That place He saved for me.

A hidden place to be fully known.

#thankfulness #beauty #time #praise