“When you get home, don’t get back on the same treadmill you’ve been on.” Without a doubt, I knew those words were from God. He was showing me that He was both speaking and present in my darkness.
But I like …. no, I love my treadmill. I know my treadmill. The treadmill is mine and I wouldn’t know what to do without it. If I can’t be on my treadmill, what do I do? Worse yet, who am I without my treadmill?
Arriving home from Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon, knowing I had Monday off, I shoved it to the back of my mind. Monday afternoon would come, though. I began thinking about what it meant.
I knew that a month away would mean a flood of mail and messages to deal with on Tuesday. I decided to have someone bring all that to me instead of going to the office next door. I knew the moment I stepped back on the property, the whirr of the treadmill would suck me right in.
That Tuesday afternoon, I had a few errands to run. As I started out in the car headed toward the freeway, I felt nudged to not take the freeway to my destination. Our city is in a valley, the floor of which spans about four miles wide by eight miles long.
As I approached the freeway, I just felt that I was to begin taking the side streets when running errands within our city limits. I knew instantly that this was one way of slowing my life down and not getting back on the treadmill.
“Maybe,” I thought, “just maybe, I can do this.”