When the Only Way Out is Through

 As much as I love national parks and hiking and adventuring and exploring, I always feel a lot of anxiety about the unknown. I research like crazy (which is a natural (and survival) tendency that has the side benefit of making me good at my travel job) because I want to know that I’m not getting in over my head. I know my abilities, and I know my weaknesses, and I don’t want to end up in a situation where I can’t finish something.

This past week we did a California trip to hit 4 national parks. The night before Pinnacles, I slept very restlessly. I re-researched everything before I could sleep. I knew that it was a hiker’s park, and I knew that I’m the most out of shape I’ve been since 2020. I knew it was predicted to be unbearably hot, with heat advisories, and that they advise not going to this park in the heat. I knew that we were going to be doing a cave that required headlamps. I knew that, while I wouldn’t say I’m claustrophobic, I do struggle sometimes when I feel confined. I knew there were limited services and facilities, no phone service, in this park. 

We got a later start than intended, which put us at the park at 11:45 AM. We had no phone service (which I knew), but I had not thought about mapping us back out after. We had water, but not a ton. We saw the sign pictured at the start of the trail, and the temp was 101, which they said the park was ten degrees hotter. I struggle mightily with elevation, even when I’m in shape, I think because of my heart function.

The sign at the beginning said that the cave was partially open. We started off up a super steep section. I was so nervous but I had prayed so much to be able to complete the hike and get to the reservoir. I knew Kraig would enjoy the hike and the cave.

I did fine, slow and steady, then we got to the cave. I looked at Kraig about halfway through and said, “I’m so glad we did this. It’s so fun!” It was a cool experience. We got to an exit from the lower cave, and Kraig noticed the gate was open to the upper. I had thought it was closed, which the sign had said due to nesting bats, but it was apparently open, so we headed to it. And about halfway through that cave is where all of my fears became reality.

The first time we had to crawl, I was freaked out a little but ok. The second time, I really had to fight myself to do it, and the knowledge that if I didn’t, I would have to go back to the first crawling part again is what pushed me through. We had been mostly alone in the cave but we could hear other people in other parts. 

Then we came to a section of complete darkness, and also total silence. No one else could be heard anywhere else in the cave. There had been big white arrows painted on the walls as direction markers and I didn’t see any. Panic set in, and just ahead was a very low section with water under your feet. I stopped dead still, knowing I couldn’t do it, terrified we were lost, filled with dread at what we would have to go back through. Kraig said he would go on into it and be sure it was the right way. I stood, hyperventilating with tears leaking out of my eyes, just whimpering “Jesus Jesus Jesus” over and over. He called that I could come on, he would shine the light backwards. I bent down and took two steps and knew I couldn’t take another. He kept encouraging me as my panic got bigger and bigger and bigger. I could see that the cave turned ahead (still crawling in water) and seemed to get even more narrow. He promised that after that turn, you went up steps and the opening and the end was right there. By this time I was full on crying and wheezing and absolutely having a legitimate panic attack, hysterically begging God and Kraig to let it be over, get me out. 

The problem was that I was in a spot where the “easiest” and only way out was through, and it was anything but easy. 

Gosh, how often are we there in life? Too far in to turn around, impossible to stop, no other way out but to forge ahead through the impossible, and paralyzed with panic and indecision? 

So I did the only thing I could. Crying and praying and panicking and trying to make myself keep breathing, I almost blindly splashed and stumbled on hands and knees through the last part, scraping shoulders and head on rock walls until I was finally to a point where I could stand on shaking legs and see the light and the opening of the cave. 

I’ve asked Kraig since how long the ordeal was, how much time passed between me first starting to panic and us getting to the end. I knew it was much shorter than it felt, and sure enough, he said probably 7-10 minutes. 

Immediately after leaving the cave, we faced a narrow, steep, and long staircase carved out of the side of a rock wall with a tiny (knee level) rail on the left side and straight down past it. It led to the reservoir, which was our end goal in the hike. In normal circumstances, seeing that would have had me worked up, but after the cave, I just took every step saying, “At least I’m out of the cave. I can do this. Anything is easier than the cave. I’m ok.”

Alex Honnald, who I’ve following for many years and have referenced on this blog before, has a theory that purposely putting ourselves in scary situations retrains our brains to handle fear and anxiety. “Repeated, intentional exposure to discomfort” is what reminds our brains what is truly something to be afraid of and what is making a mountain out of a molehill. While I didn’t start into that cave with the plan of becoming utterly terrified and then pushing through, the pushing through is what stacked a new experience in my brain to refer back to the next time I confront something that feels impossible for me.

There are no pictures of the scary part of the cave because I was too panicked to even think of it and Kraig was too busy trying to calm me down. 😂 But the pic on this blog post is me after climbing the stone staircase to the reservoir. You can’t see it in the picture, but my legs and hands were still trembling. My face had dried salty tears on it. My insides were jello. But I did it. I’m out. I’m still standing. 

Link to Alex’s video is below:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CKVotdKBU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Building Walls

“You’ll find the right stone at the right time.”

We were driving through the Irish countryside on a motorcoach when our guide uttered this incredibly profound, almost prophetic word, in the midst of a simple explanation about Irish farming. He had pointed out the gorgeous stone walls that crisscross the hillsides. He said they don’t use mortar, they just stack them, and that a kid’s worst kind of Saturday was when the parents said, “Come on, kids, you’re going stone picking.”

He said that he had originally been a horticulture student and that one time he had taken a job helping landscape a farm. He wasn’t sure what the job entailed till he got there, but the overseer told him they were going to build a wall. He told the boss that he had not ever built a wall, and the boss said just to make 3 stacks of stones: round ones, square ones, and weird ones. And then just start stacking them.

“You’ll find the right stone at the right time.”

I’ve thought a lot lately about my life’s choices and paths. My freshman RTI group read “The Road Not Taken” last week and it always gets me in my feels when I think about the different ways my life has turned out than what I expected. The truth is that my preference, as a high school graduate, would have been to know precisely every step between then and now… the spouse, the kids, the career, the details of every piece of it. But gosh, what excitement I would have missed along the way if I had known! And what needless anxiety I would have carried, anticipating circumstances that led to changes of course. 

What has actually transpired in my life is that I’ve found the right stone at all the right times. 

I didn’t marry the person I thought I would. Instead, I met and married the most perfect man for me.

I didn’t have a boy, a girl, and a boy like I had hoped. Instead, I got the sweetest two girls that were heaven sent and then, when I didn’t get to adopt a son 3 years after Kelsey was born, instead I got to adopt the most perfect 3 Filipino angels that perfectly completed our family.

I didn’t become a physical therapist. Instead, I have been blessed with 25 years of a career that has fulfilled me in ways I didn’t even know I needed to be fulfilled. And then, when I was given seniors after two years of sophomores and then yearbook after 17 years away from it, and freshman RTI instead of RISE… instead I got these awesome refreshing changes that gave me just the boosts I needed when I needed them.

All of these big things, yes, and then a thousand other little things… a photography side career for the perfect ten years for it, a shirt/creation business for the exact ten years that it fit, and now a travel business that’s providing the most incredible blessings just when I need them… a ministry that I have grown up with and evolved and changed as it has, a stone that I thought I wanted but I see so clearly now was not the right one… friendships that happened the perfect times, friendships that ended in the nick of time, and friendships that renewed at the most meaningful time… roots in the places that feel made for me, from my hometown to my homestead to my home retreat of Bear Paw.

I know that these “right stones at the right times” didn’t just happen. I know that they were ordained. And stones for me have always held precious meaning, so I know that the moment on the bus the other day was a message that came from a place much deeper than a tour guide explaining the countryside. 

So today, God, in this hotel room in Killarney, Ireland, I thank you for all the times you place the right stone at the right time for me. You are so good.

Festina Lente- 2026

 The one little word/word of the year practice has always been deeply meaningful to me. I start praying about my word in mid December, and usually have a short list by Christmas. Sometimes the frontrunner is very obvious, and sometimes it takes some time to narrow it down. At times (this year is one of the “times”), it comes out of nowhere and isn’t even on the short list.

This year’s short list was:

Anchor, breathe, elevate or higher, celebrate, meliora (good, toward better things), stand, and memento vivere (remember to live)

Not on the short list, but a song title/lyric that stays with me is “Die Slower”. 

As I was looking at the Latin phrase “memento vivere”, I came across this one: Festina Lente… make haste slowly.

I knew immediately, and then when I investigated it further, I found that an anchor is often used with that phrase, which further solidified it for me (since anchor was another word on my list. Plus memento vivere AND die slower fit perfectly with this phrase.

What does make haste slowly mean? Why this phrase for 2026?

My 2025 word, align, was incredibly powerful for me. And while I brought things into alignment this past year, there are still ends to pull together and I need to maintain a lot of what I started that may not yet be a routine. 

This year, I’m feeling called to, as one of my daughters said the other day, “be where my feet are”. It’s important to me that I seize all the moments and remember to live, but that I keep anchored with the lessons and systems and rhythms and disciplines that held me this past year. I want to take advantage of every opportunity, but keep the priorities in order. I want to hold to every bit of quality time with my people but also handle my business. I want to keep my health in a state that allows for a life I want to live. 

I am and have always been a person of extremes. I’m either all in, or I’m not in at all. I live sometimes with urgency, as if I’ve been given a death sentence (which, I guess, technically, haven’t we all?) and I have to cram everything possible into every moment. Then other times I can’t find the motivation to do anything. Decisions paralyze me. Fatigue of planning and executing brings me to a full stop. 

This year, I want to focus on making haste but doing it steadily and correctly. Balance. Anchored. Living. 

As I reread this, I feel like it’s a scattered explanation, but I feel it in my spirit. The depth of understanding in my very soul is perhaps beyond mere words, beyond an ability to convey it to anyone else. As has often happened in the past, I absolutely believe that the word and message and meaning will take better shape as the Lord reveals to me what He wants to show me with this year’s word, and I am eager (and always a little apprehensive) to live this one out.