One more step.

There's not much to say here. There aren't many schemes, ideas, plans or wisdom that can be summarised here to work for the rest of life. There isn't a nice neat plan of how things are going to work out. Sometimes I can't see the mountain range mapped out in front of me. This is a journey that twists and turns, that goes down and up and spirals around. In fact, if you have time, it's a little like the walk I went on with my Dad today. We meandered around some Surrey countryside (and saw where his tunnel is going to go- very exciting), we wandered down a steep path with one view of a valley, double backed on ourselves further down the valley, seeing things from a different perspective and then walked down the other side of the valley, getting yet another angle on the pretty scenery. We trudged up steep hills, on paths that weren't all that obvious and back tracked on ourselves a couple of points along the way.

That is life. This is what we live, seemingly random and yet beautifully ordered in ways we will never know. And it's not our place to do the guessing, it's our place to keep walking, to trust in the weirdness, to look at the scenery and remember the one with us as we walk. It's our place to interact, to recall to mind, to be reminded and to receive the strength and mercy to walk the bit we walk today. And yet, it's easy to lose sight of that, easy to just do the bits of life that everyone else sees, rather than the hidden twists and turns, the hidden pathways on this journey that are essential along the way.

I've realised I've stopped doing the hidden things, the praying, preparing and planning (and other important things beginning with P). I've stopped remembering the One who is behind and through and in and who, well, just IS in all this stuff of life. It's easy to blame my job, other people or circumstances but the reality is I'm sinful. I'm lazy. And I'm sorry. But I also know that I have a God who is unending mercy. (well this is what I am told and this I shall believe, and when I can't someone else in this wonderful body can believe it for me.). A God who beats me in any staring contest, whose love is real, whose silence speaks louder than any silence I have known and a God who is committed to getting me home.

I'd love to put in a five point plan that would get me sorted out and able to keep walking without tripping up. But I can't. I don't have it, God is strangely silent when I ask him for such things. Perhaps because he's not dedicated to everyone seeing how together Kath Arnold really is. He seems to want me to live in this moment he's given me Today. He seems to want me to swallow my pride and receive. He seems to want me to take one more step, trusting that His grace is sufficient for this moment, and that tomorrow the mercies will be new. He seems to want me to love well, to eat and sleep and act with grace and mercy to those around me. He seems to want me to stop blaming and wallowing and to walk on because He is enough. He seems to look in my eyes with the most real love in the universe, calls me His child and offers his hand once more for the next bit of the journey.

It turns out that there was a lot to say, but there isn't much to do, be actioned or put into place, just some breathing, walking, sleeping and remembering that Someone else is redeeming, restoring, working through and enabling. My 5 point plan will never work, waking up and asking what He is doing might just. Being reminded by and reminding the people around me in this being-transformed-daily-together-body might. One more step, one more step.