While on vacation recently, Gary and I went hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. After hoofing it over six miles to Le Conte Lodge, we headed back down the same trail.
The girls taking our picture thought it was so cute that Gary helped me over the rocks by Rainbow Falls.
At one point, there was a big rock with some moss and a bit of water on it. As I placed my foot, I had the fleeting thought that maybe I should step down further to the right instead of directly on the rock. Just like that, my boot slid out from under me and I landed—hard—on my left hip and shoulder. Gary saw me fall, so he hurried back to make sure I was okay. “I don’t think I broke anything,” I moaned as I pulled myself up and sat for a minute. We continued down the trail. I was sore, but I could still hike.
Amazingly, I didn’t fall down this set of steps!
I figured I would have a bruise after hitting that hard, but we were amazed to see just how big it was the next day. A 6-by-8-inch purple rectangle graced my left thigh. It was still shockingly huge when we got home to South Dakota. I decided to go do my swim workouts, even though people would be able to see it.
“Whoa! What happened to you?” several people commented. I was able to tell them about our long hike in the mountains. I was kind of embarrassed that I had fallen, but I also felt pretty proud of my bruise. As I swam a couple more times this week, I came to think of it as a badge of honor. I had taken a fall, but I got up and kept hiking, and I had the bruise to prove it.
Taken two days after the fall. It got even prettier after this!
When you live with a mental health diagnosis, you sometimes end up with emotional bruises and scars. Sure, people usually can’t see them, but we know they’re there. The tender spots in our lives can be a badge of honor for us—proof that we’ve lived through something difficult and we’re still here.
When we see someone else struggling emotionally, let’s be quick to tell them about our bruises and scars. It may inspire them to keep going as they continue their own journey to better mental health.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)
Have you ever had a bruise or scar you were kind of proud of? How can focusing on God help you be willing to share your emotional bruises and scars with someone who needs encouragement or inspiration?
“Let’s hike on the Appalachian Trail when we go to Tennessee in September!”
That was my suggestion earlier this summer. My husband was a bit skeptical, but I was excited. We made our plans, filled our backpacks, and told all our friends and family about our plan to hike seventy miles through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Appalachian Trail.
Never mind the fact that we had never hiked more than two or three days before, and this would be six nights in a tent in the mountains. I was sure it would be fun to camp out.
Never mind the fact that I wasn’t in peak physical shape. I started walking up and down our basement stairs and I strapped on my pack the week before we left and walked five miles with it one day.
Never mind the fact that there are lots of black bears in the Smoky Mountains and we heard disturbing stories about some bear encounters. We picked up a can of bear spray on the way to Tennessee.
We spent a day with my parents, and then my dad drove us over to Fontana Dam where we would start our adventure.
Don’t we look excited? What could possibly go wrong?
Gary had wisely suggested we start our first day with six miles.
It took us six hours to get to Birch Spring Tentsite. We set up camp, hung our food bag on the bear cable, then set up camp again after we found a better spot. We got all snug in our sleeping bags…
And then we froze!
It was the oddest sensation. First I got sweaty and then I would start to shiver violently. I lay on one side for a while, then I would turn to my back, then I would wiggle onto my other side. We had condensation on the inside of the tent, so every time I got close to the wall I would get a little water on my face or in my hair. It was so annoying!
We got up before dawn and packed up our things so we were ready to start hiking when it got light.
It took us from 7:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to go the 11.4 miles to the Spence Field Trail Shelter. We were averaging about one mile per hour.
As we hiked, I was thinking about the rest of our week. The daily miles for the remainder of our hike were 11.8 on Tuesday, 15.3 on Wednesday, 12.6 on Thursday, and 14.6 on Friday (and then just a couple of miles to the pick up point on Saturday).
I couldn’t do it! One mile an hour meant we’d have to hike in the dark part of the time. And five more nights of freezing cold misery? No way! If we could have, we would have gotten off the trail right then and there, but we figured out that we had to either go back twelve miles or forge ahead seventeen miles to a good pickup spot.
We called my parents after we got our tent set up. “Umm, Dad, do you think you could pick us up at Clingman’s Dome on Wednesday?”
Mom and Dad laughed. They had been expecting a call because they had heard it was going to rain on Thursday and Friday (something we hadn’t realized). They also knew it had gotten down into the thirties on Sunday night. They agreed to pick us up.
I hadn’t truly counted the cost of hiking in the mountains. I had thought I was prepared, but I was miserably unprepared for the ups and downs of the trail. I thought I was in good enough shape, but I should have been training harder for our experience.
I think we do this with our faith at times. My Life Application Study Bible has a challenging note about Luke 14:28–30: We must carefully count the cost of becoming Christ’s disciples so that we will know what we are getting into and won’t be tempted later to turn back.
We have to count the cost and be all in as we follow the Lord. No turning back.
I’m glad we had the option of getting off the trail after we figured out that we weren’t ready for an entire week in the Smokies.
We still had to endure two cold nights and a day and a half of tough hiking before we finished. I’ll tell you more about that next week.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:28–30, 33 NIV)
Have you ever neglected to count the cost before you attempted something? How did it turn out? How can focusing on God help you to keep going as you follow him?
Here are a few pictures of our first day on the trail:
I’m pointing out the white blazes we would follow along the AT. A timber rattler. We never would have seen it if some other hikers hadn’t told us to watch for it. The view from Shuckstack fire tower. Worth the climb! Almost to our first campsite.
