The Real WIP: One Step in Front of the Other

I was preparing to make a post on Facebook for WIP Wednesday, so excited to share my progress in the second in the Blood Reckoning Series, Moving Target. The word count is not earth-shaking or anything, but it definitely has momentum. Then, I realized there is a different WIP I feel anyone can relate to. The work that goes on within us. That could lead me in several different paths, one to my life, one to my Heavenly Father, but my thoughts immediately went to a memory with my dad.

When I was a teenager, my dad took me on an overnight camping trip in the Cohutta Wilderness. We were hiking the Hickory Creek Trail, a grueling up and down, but mostly up it seemed. I didn’t appreciate hiking then, the way I do now. I slogged along in defiant teenage fashion and acted as though I might die. My dad was a tough man, still is. At seventy-four, he works longer hours on his property than I do at my day job. He’s a Vietnam Veteran and he’s seen a lot, but he’s the most down-to-earth man you’ll ever meet. He appreciates nature and I can’t count the number of times he’s told me, “I just like to sit and look at all this beauty around me and think how awesome it is that God created all of this.”

On that day, I was far from appreciating God’s glory, but dad came back to me—yes, I was not keeping up. He told me, “You just have to tell yourself, one step in front of the other.” Then, he taught me a cadence that they used to do in the Army. He said cadences helped with consistency, giving you a rhythm to hike by. It worked and somehow, we got to our camping spot. I’m not exactly sure how far we went, it’s a sixteen-mile trail, but it took hours. We finally came to a little stream and pitched our tent there, but the growth didn’t stop there. That night, I listened to what I could only assume were hogs just outside the tent, probably because of discarded Vienna sausage cans from our evening meal, while dad snored peacefully beside me.

I took that phrase “one step in front of the other” and applied it throughout my life. I didn’t know how important it was then, but I do now. There are days where it’s all I can do to get out of bed and go to work. Days where it’s all I can do to write. But then, I think of how far I’ve come and how none of it would be possible without that first step.

I wrote all this between the wee hours of 4 and 5 this morning. No nights to sleep over it. Just a blog, but not a work in progress.

I hope your WIP is coming along, whatever it may be. On the days it feels like it isn’t, just remember “You have to tell yourself, one step in front of the other.”