The photo on my Home Page (by Adrien Tutin at Unsplash) reminds me of my lovely and much missed West Highland Terrier, Hamish, who loved to walk in woodland.
He’d dash off to explore the scents in the leaf mould, rush from the base of one tree to another, barking futilely as squirrels chased one another through the canopy above. Hamish was perfectly at home in the woods and often, once he’d fallen into a deep sleep after the walk, he’d twitch and (or so I imagined), relive our walk and all his adventures in his dreams.
I’d usually walk with a friend and her dogs and I rarely took Hamish to the woods on my own. Even when the sun was visible through the trees, being on my own sometimes felt eerie and disorientating.
Sometimes my Christian journey feels like walking alone through the woods. It’s a beautiful, multi layered, multi textured thing but I can’t always see the way ahead clearly and the rustles and crackles in the undergrowth and the shifting shadows can be very unsettling. Small paths, branching off from the main ones, can confuse and divert me.
But there’s so much that’s rich in the woods: the richness of nature, its textures, sounds and smells, the sense of renewal as the woods move through the seasons.
I feel blessed deeply that I’m on this life journey through the beautiful but unknown woods, knowing that so many other people have walked the path before me and have left signs to help me on the way. I can’t see those who’ve gone before but their experience draws me forward through the patches of sunlight and the confusion of shadows.
I pray that this blog may help you as you walk your own journey.
Sunlight Through the Shadows 