(705) 443-9786 karenssoapbox@gmail.com

My mother loved to get lost. It was one of her favourite things to do and she taught us to love it too. We would go out for drives on Sunday after church and at intersections, she would say right or left, wherever we wanted to go. I doubt she was ever really lost, but that was not what she made me think, I know she was just trying to teach me that you are never really lost, just misplaced for a while. She was right. There was joy in my heart when I recognized a familiar marker and accomplishment that I got us home but an equal amount of sadness in knowing the familiar had been found and the adventure was coming to a close. My mother was teaching me to trust, trust my gut, trust my intuition and trust God, did she do it intentionally, I don’t know. 

Anyone who drives with me now knows there is not a dirt road I won’t go down and hopefully find my way on a different path, the GPS stays closed and we get lost, just a little. 

 

Why this story when I’m supposed to be talking about the Camino, hold on I am getting there. Getting lost in a car is really different than getting lost on foot, if you go even 2 km in the wrong direction you have gone 4 km out of your way, which at my pace was a full hour. An hour of daylight, an hour that could keep me from getting a bed if I arrived in a town too late. Getting lost on the Camino wasn’t fun and I did it almost every day. The Spanish people were so amazing, if I was off course they would see my pack (an obvious sign I was a pilgrim) turn me around and get me back on track. Here’s the plot twist, I don’t like reading maps, so I didn’t. Oh, I would take a quick look at the guide book the night before but after that, I’d wing it!  Here I was getting frustrated about getting lost almost every day and yet not wanting to read the map and the guidebook too much because I wanted it to be a surprise and my own adventure. I didn’t want to know what was up ahead, yet I would cry and cry because I was lost and had to make the 4 km trek out of my way again. 

 

School children, I met because I went the wrong way out of a city. They asked me questions about my journey and Canada. They were so excited to practise their English.

BUT even if I got lost, no matter what it all worked out. I had a bed to sleep in every night and dinner on my plate every evening. Usually getting lost meant I saw things that other pilgrims didn’t see, met people in their villages that others may not have met. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three weeks into my journey after weeks of frustration and tears  I realized that all I needed to do was to trust, trust my gut, trust my intuition and trust God. Trust that this journey was mine to make it might look different, but if I was going to refuse to read the maps, then this is how it would go. Guess what? I still got lost every day. But now being lost became my adventure, I would journal about all of the things I saw, the people I met because I got lost. I trusted that everything about the day was meant just for me. As soon as I changed my perspective, the days got easier.

 

It can be so hard to just trust in the path, but if you leave room for the adventure the path will lead you to exactly where you are meant to be. 

 

In Love, Light, and laughter 

Karen