{yes, pink crowns :) }
It's been a Friday full of pleasure. We got to eat pie for breakfast in a local diner here. Afterwards, the night shift crew parked the RV in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We spent a good deal of time being royal fools there (hopefully pictures to come!) before we decided to take our goofballery next door to Toys R' Us. Upon leaving, Kathlene put me inside an abandoned shopping cart and made sure to hit every pot hole on the way to the cart corral. If I had been fighting sleep, that joy ride made me the victor over it. We had an absolutely brilliant afternoon together, but the rest of our week has certainly not been peaches.
Despite the many perks of walking throughout the night, the lack of sleep began to take it's toll after only a couple of shifts. Wednesday evening I woke up and hobbled over to the bath house to prepare for the upcoming night walk. I locked the shower door and anxiously awaited the arrival of scalding hot water. Kathlene had spoken mounds of praise over this particular bath house. Apparently it was to be the best shower I'd had since embarking on our journey. And since we have fostered such a deep appreciation for hot sprays of water these past three weeks, I was ready for it to be the best shower of my life. But to my dismay, the water was colder than the icy rain of the mountains. I was not to be discouraged. I waited patiently for almost ten minutes, knowing that payoff was in sight. But still the hot water didn't come. Convinced that the problem lie in this particular shower's pipes, I quickly dressed and moved to the next shower stall. After ten seconds in that cold box, I had had enough. Time was drawing short. So, reluctantly, I moved to the bathroom sink and sullenly began washing my hair beneath the nozzle. After shampooing, I moved on to washing my forearms and toes with grudging satisfaction. I was not to be inconvenienced out of a chance to rinse the grime of travel from my person. At this point, an elderly woman stumbled into the scene. Embarrassed, I explained my predicament. So she fetched the woman on duty in the office and I explained once more why I was dripping body wash into the hand sink. The attendant walked into the troublesome stall, turned a knob and immediately exclaimed at its heat. My jaw dropped. She had to be lying. But it wasn't so...
I had unwittingly had the water dial on cold the entire time. Mortified, I dabbed at my soggy toes and scampered into the warmth of the shower stall. I thanked God over and over that the woman had not been friendly enough to ask where I was from. Alabama doesn't need another reason to be the butt of jokes. And it doesn't help that the Good Lord blessed me with natural golden locks. Adding insult to injury, to be sure.
God didn't think that was funny enough, so as soon as my team began walking that night He made sure to pull all the stops out of the sky. "I don't think you showered enough, Katie, so I'm just here to bring you some of my own showers!" He said. Watery daggers cascaded upon our frigid bodies, their points only sharpened by a wind that seemed to push us one step backward for every two steps we took forward. The temperature fell below 40, and my walking partner was losing morale fast. Thankfully, I know my guardian angel to be an entity of incredible cheer and asked that he bring me the joy of the Lord on this dark night. He didn't delay. Quite suddenly, I found myself floating on a dry cloud of optimism. I quite forgot about being soaked to the bone, and the howling wind almost took on a persona of friendliness.
Distracting my partner from misery became my mission. So we talked and talked and talked. Of things spiritual, relational, and nonsensical. And when we could no longer form a coherent thought, we prayed. Finally, we saw the red hazard lights of the support fan flashing in the distance. Surely no more than a mile away. The next mile marker came and went-- and we soon realized that there were actually two more to endure. We had already prayed all the mysteries of the Holy Rosary and recited two Divine Mercy Chaplets. What to do? We began invoking the name of every saint that ever made his way into the files of our memory. "St. Jude, pray for us! St. Rita, St. Perpetua, St. Jospeph, pray for us!!!" On and on it went. Back and forth, we recited the longest Litany of Saints I'm sure was ever composed. When we could no longer rack our brains for names of holy men and women, we beseeched every rank of angel conceivable. Choirs, thrones, principalities, pray for us!
And suddenly...
it was over.
We had made it to the van!!
Thanks be to God, it was over! By far the most difficult night I've endured thus far. And yet, it was the night I felt the most encouraged and assured. That night I learned to praise God in a physical storm I thought would master me. And now I pray He will show me to better love Him when I'm drowning in the torrents of inward conflict.
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