Trail blazers.
They are the women who hold their daughter’s hand and skip across the Walmart parking lot at mid-day. First to look into a small one’s eyes and say, “I made a mistake. Could you please forgive me?” First to trade old habits for new. First to say, “Yes,” when they’d have rather said, “No.”
Trail blazers.
They are the mentors whacking understory brambles aside with their trekking poles, blazing a line of travel down a forgotten spur trail in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains. The first to be slapped in the face by young saplings. First to face the rattlesnakes. First to come up with a game plan. First to squeeze out their last creative juices and mix them together into an entertaining feast for exhausted minds. Real people.
Trail blazers.
They are the men sitting alone in the front row at the seminar. First to be honest. First to cry. First to accept love. Trail blazers.
They are the cashiers who dare to look each customer in the eye, risking enough to see what there is to see in this world.
They are the men and women and children who say, “I don’t know how to do this, but God called me to do it so here I go.”
They are the children and women and men who grip truth relentlessly.
Facing the fire.
Giving up what feels good so they have room in their worlds for what IS good.
Creating safe spaces in an unsafe world.
Making heaven visible on earth.
Trail blazers, please know you are seen. You are celebrated, and so very loved. All of heaven is at your disposal–all of heaven celebrates your every win and mourns your every loss.
Trail blazers, the wild places look like paradise now that you have trampled a path through the stinging nettle, and marked the place where the ground bees live–now that you’ve pulled out the poison ivy and cut back the saplings that used to leave welt marks on your face.
Each and every trail blazer after you will continue to widen the path!
Many will walk in your footsteps, and never experience the dangers and the pain you’ve faced. These people will thrive!
Today, release the questions of what is yet to be and celebrate the reality of…
what is.
A Blurred Reflection 
3 responses to “Trail Blazers”
This gives me goosebumps. Thank you for the encouraging words!
Beautifully and creatively written! And what better example do we have of a real trailblazer than Hyper Nike herself!
Thank you!