Being Carried

This week, I checked off a bucket-list item: I walked from my front door to the Freiburg Münster, 48 km. Well, I walked 44 of it because I developed a pain in my left foot, so when I reached the outskirts of the city, I jumped on a bus for the last 4 km. Oh well. Almost. 🙂

It brought to mind one of my favorite memories from my second Camino pilgrimage across northern Spain. On the Camino Frances, just past Carrion de los Condes, is one of the longest stretches without a town or water. It’s only 17 km, so not impossible, but people were actively planning for it the night before with extra purchases and strategies. That’s when my friend, Rachel, saw a poster for a horse-drawn carriage option. With pleading eyes she begged me to check into it before crashing for her daily nap. I called the number on the poster and in broken Spanish was able to find out that he needed a minimum of 8 pilgrims to make it worth it and what the cost would be. Where I kept faltering was in the directions for our meeting spot at 6 am. I understood “después el rio …” (after the river …), and then everything else he said was lost in a jumble of words unfamiliar to me. After I made him repeat it four times, I decided that we would wing it. The whole thing ended up being a delightful adventure as Rachel and I laughed our way across the 17 km light-footed and guilt-free with 6 new best friends. This was the way we met Carla, who became an integral member of our Camino family for the rest of that hike. I’ve even visited her in the Netherlands since then. A printed selfie of this leg of the journey still hangs in my apartment as a reminder of the good stories God weaves even when we can’t quite walk anymore.

Not every walk has to be “walked.” Sometimes I have to let myself be carried - by buses and horse carts and friends and Jesus. Sometimes the pain means needing to push pause on bucket lists, and that’s okay too. 44 km was still an adventure and held beauty that was impossible to fully capture.