Start Walking

One Sunday morning, when I was around twelve years old, my mom was driving us to church. We didn’t have the best car. It was old and unreliable, at best. Often, money in our household was tight. 

About halfway to church, our car stopped running. I don’t remember if it ran out of gas, or broke down, or both. I just remember it stopped moving. 

The first thought that crossed my mind was, “We aren’t making it to church today.”

But the first thought that crossed my mom’s mind was, “We are absolutely making it to church today.” 

My mom didn’t panic. She didn’t cry. She didn’t curse and pound the dashboard in anger. She didn’t stand on the curb and wave frantically for help. She didn’t sit there behind the wheel, unmoving, paralyzed with anxiety. She simply got my brother and I out of the car, took our hands in her own, and started walking towards the church. 

Church wasn’t close. It was on the other side of a big hill, a couple miles away, nowhere in sight. In my mind, it might as well have been one thousand miles away. Ask my mom and she will tell you – I hated walking as a kid.  It seemed unreachable. 

But my mom was unruffled. If she was upset, she didn’t show it. She walked. We walked by her side. We just kept walking. Eventually, as we were walking a fellow member noticed us and we hopped in their car the rest of the way. 

I’ve never forgotten that moment, that look of quiet determination on my mom’s face. I often flash back to that moment whenever I’m feeling frustrated about something in my life—staring at an overwhelming stack of headshots that need to be organized, processing a business decision that didn’t pan out exactly the way I’d hoped, or throwing my hands up at the news from the lack of empathy over lives that may look different than their own.

We are living in a “stopped car” season. At this moment, we have several choices. We can sit here and do nothing. We can freak out. We can lash out. Or, we can simply get out of the car and start walking. Right foot, left foot, moving in the direction of the greater goal. 

Start Walking Now

Yes, walking might be slower than driving—but eventually, we will get there. As long as you don’t give up, you will arrive at the march, the job, the project, the role of a lifetime, the sacred destination that the Universe is planning for you.

I know we are divided and it’s divisive right now but you have to start walking.

Your neighbor needs you. 

Please start walking.

And don’t you dare stop.