Obscuring Mists

I used to be able to calculate my future as easily as looking down a path on a clear day... the possibilities, some inevitabilities.  It was comforting in a way...

And yet now, a fog has arisen... completely obscuring the path before me so that I can see only one step at a time.  A future I was so sure of... gone.  Hidden.

Where leads my path now?  Through the forest?  To a lake?  Into a ravine, or off the edge of a cliff?  Will it lead me through a pleasant vale, or to a terrifying end?

I've grown so tired... so fatigued in body and spirit.  How many steps do I have left in me?  How many more beats to this tired, broken heart?

Yet, still I walk, moving one foot in front of the other, as ideas and dreams evaporate... disintegrate around me.

Loved ones ahead, and loved ones behind... whither I wander, I shall finish in good company.  And yet, even in my solitude... though there is the muted sound of only one set of footsteps, two walk this path, side by side... sometimes the one leading and guiding the other, sometimes the one bracing the other.

In my loneliness and obscurity, there is the constant and pleasing companionship of God himself... for whatever path I tread, He knows it, he has walked it.

I don't deserve the peace He gives me, nor His guidance... I don't deserve His company, nor His love, and yet He is as constant as the northern star.

When the time comes that I can no longer walk on this path... when I have sat down for my final rest, I pray that my family knows of my endless and abiding love for them, and that my friends and and loved ones know how much they mean to me.