“And it so happened, that as they were talking and debating everything, Jesus himself came up and started walking with them” (Luke 24.15).
Jesus, I’m tired. It seems like no matter how far I go each day, there’s always more ground to cover. No matter how early I get to bed, I still wake up wanting more sleep. My feet and back and hips hurt, and each time they start to feel better they seem to get worse.
And, the worst of it is, we seem to have become separated somewhere along the way. Maybe it was when I was looking forward, walking just as fast I could. Or, maybe, you realized I’d stopped talking and you decided to hang back, give me some space, some time to work out whatever was in my head.
I’m sorry about that. For a little while, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I still kind of feel that way.
There’s a lot going on, and I feel like all I’m thinking about is getting to the next thing or trying to keep track of where I need to stop on the road ahead. I’m so afraid, right now, of forgetting things, important things. And, I’m afraid of letting people down. All this anxiety is taking up all the space I’ve got in my brain; and, you know, the last thing I want to do is talk about it.
But I’d like to be with you.
So, for today, I’m going to slow up a little, give you a chance to catch up to me. I hope you’ll hurry, find me, slip up alongside while the day’s still young. Even if I still may not be much for conversation, I’d enjoy hanging out on this road with you.
In the meantime, I’ll keep looking. Waiting for you to sneak up behind as you’ve done before.
This captures perfectly how it feels to allow those feelings of anxiety and fear to create a distance between me and Christ. (Of course, I don’t have the problem you have…where you tend to stop talking when you feel that way. You know more than anyone else that during these times I can’t seem to stop talking about my anxieties.)