Crushed Rock Prayer Walks

Can you feel it?

The weather is beginning to turn. The last summer sun is mixing with a different air now, slowly but surely pulling us toward true autumn. Summer rhythms are being exchanged for school year schedules, and even the weather is expressing this shift. Every year, this gradual slide from one season to the next stirs something inside me. The change calls me to stillness. The opening of new chapters pulls me to reflect on the past. So here we are in September and I find myself drawn back to two Septembers ago. A time when I felt an urgency to soak in the bright autumn weather. I knew how quickly fall would slip into winter. So I seized whatever interludes I could and headed out to the path.

But letting all that fading fall wash over and through me was not the only urgency I felt. We were talking about trying to start a family. I knew that beginning to walk down that road meant a lot of unknowns and potentially heartbreak. A child is a gift. I felt the weightiness of this next step. I did not want it to be about our plans and our timing. To me, this was an opportunity to intentionally choose how we walked this road ahead; how we even thought about our desires and future. I deeply wanted to pray…actually pray...not say we would pray and then weeks later feel convicted by the lack of time spent verbalizing any of this to God. I knew my weakness and so I knew this needed to be consistently surrendered to God...choosing to trust His will, His timing, His way. If we were going to be walking towards a child, I wanted it to be bathed in prayer from the very beginning.

And so it began. Those walks in the crisp air, the late afternoon rays casting their golden sheen, the crunching stones beneath my feet, all became the setting for those repeated prayers. Over and over again those walks provided the uninterrupted time to talk to God. September turned into October yet the focus remained the same. Step by step surrender. Step by step submit the whole web of thoughts and emotions tied to “starting a family” back over to Him.

And on one of those walks in October, the date of which I cannot even remember, everything changed...

An indescribable moment.

An entirely new experience.

No audible voice.

But an overwhelming sense.

How would I ever explain a moment like this?

Undeniable and yet no proof to claim:

We were going to have a girl next fall??

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The weather was turning again and as summer rolled in, I was heading into the final trimester of my pregnancy. So as our baby grew, walking the Prairie Path to my mother’s house became a welcome way to try and keep moving while also satisfying the desire to be outside as much as possible. I clocked the one and half mile walk over and over again until I was capable of predicting the time my arrival to nearly the second. I loved the regularity of those walks but most of all I loved the way it shaped my prayers.

No headphones.

No music.

Leaves shifting in the breeze.

Each step a soft crunch on the ground limestone beneath my feet.

Those walks provided a space to put aside everything and simply pray.

I did not have to tally the number of walks that summer or calculate the hours to know it was worthwhile. Knowing the grand total of time would not have changed a thing.

What mattered was focusing on nothing but praying for that baby inside of me. Step by step I became used to spending more and more time with the One who knew and loved that baby far more than even me.

And then in September... she came.

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And now here we are, walking that path together, soaking in one season giving into the next. Morning after morning I push her in the stroller and we travel the same route I once walked with her inside me.

One day I went on a walk with a friend and I noticed that she seemed content even longer than usual. I noticed the same thing on evening walks when her dad joined us. The common denominator seemed to be conversation. My theory was that she did better when she could hear my voice while she was pushed along.

So one morning I decided to just start praying out loud.

And just like those prayer walks while pregnant last summer, I am finding the regularity is re-shaping my prayer life all over again.

So now I am starting to wonder: How many of us have ever heard ourselves actually talking to Him and not just having the silent conversation that only exists in our head?

I think for so many of us, we only pray out loud when we are in some sort of group setting. Maybe you are elected to pray before a meal or maybe you are praying in some sort of small group at church. In any of those settings, regardless of how much it affects you or not, there is always the “other” who is listening in on your prayer to God.

Or maybe you have prayed aloud but it has only been during some of the darkest of times; perhaps prayers of utter desperation—literally crying out for help or maybe even yelling at God.

Up until a couple months ago, that was me.

Praying out loud did not change everything like it was some sort of missing ingredient to a magical recipe. But it is definitely harder to get distracted when you are forming a sentence to God… a spoken one.

If I actually set aside more time to pray, how much will it change anything? How powerful is it really? What if it only feels like a chore?

I asked those type of questions a lot before I started praying while I walked.

I now find myself amazed at what God does in a heart that is regularly returning to spend more and more time with Him. Morning and after morning, I talk to Him about the very same things, the very same people, the very same desires, the very same fears. But those walks are anything but trudging in monotony. The more walks I spend talking with Him, the more I find myself longing for Him. And that in itself is an answer to my prayers.

#growing #grace #thankfulness #time #HisWill