Hiking the Camino

               Hiking the Camino was a book that seriously made me change the way I looked at my faith, life, and attitude in general. Looking back on my life I realize that I have had to deal with a lot of pain and difficulty. I never really thought much of it until I went to my sophomore retreat and I really met God for the first time. After that point I thought that God would make me feel painless all the time. Shortly after the retreat I came to the harsh reality that faith and a relationship with God was not all cookies and rainbows. I didn’t understand why all of the love I felt at retreats couldn’t stay with me as a ventured out into my daily struggles. I often found myself to be angry at God and I resented him for allowing these things to happen in my life.  I would pray and ask God for them to go away, but they never did.

So, I opened the book and I started reading. Honestly, I thought it was going to be pointless and just about another priest’s perfect relationship with God. I was mistaken. After Father Dave cracked a couple jokes and made me feel comfortable and engaged in his story, he would pull on my heart strings and make me reevaluate my attitude. As I was reading I felt like I could hear God yelling at me to stop thinking that following him was easy. As I read the book, I realized that if following Jesus was easy, everyone would do it. When I have those moments of peace when I am on retreats, it is god reassuring me that he is with me during those times of pain that I must return to. Instead of asking god to stop the pain, I need to ask god to walk with me. Jesus didn’t want to endure his suffering on the cross, but he did it anyway out of love for me. I need to endure my suffering and do it for Jesus. I can further grow in my relationship with God by uniting my suffering to his on the cross. I loved how Father Dave kept reiterating “All this for the King”. Our life is hard and we go through it in order to be with god in heaven at the end of it all.

Another major lesson I learned from hiking the Camino was that God has a specific path for you. Everyone that he puts on that path is there for a reason and god intends for you to learn something from that person. As I was reading, I thought about the people that God put in my life to teach me lessons. I started to laugh because it hit me that God has this huge master plan that he is carrying out and when I look back on the lessons I have learned, I can see that I learned them due to different experiences I had with people. I am excited to see what I will learn and how I will grow in my relationship with God when I relate to the people God puts in my path.

As I move forward after reading this book, it is time for me to make some changes in my life. To start I need to put God first. I don’t get to choose my cross or my path. It is all up to god. I need to put God first and trust in his will. I need to pray more and I need to change my prayer. Instead of asking God to change the things I cannot change, I need to ask god to change my attitude and how I handle situations. I remember at the campus ministry retreat when I was the last one left in the maze. I don’t need to go this walk alone and there is no shame in asking god to help along this road. God can be my anchor when everything else seems to be going wrong. God can be my friend when I feel alone. God can be my guide through college and the crazy teenage experiences. In the end all I have to do is ask for his help and wisdom and he will help me through. Now that is not saying that everything will be easy. Following god is one of the hardest paths to follow, but the outcome is the best thing in the universe. Now when I ask God for help, I can’t just take it and forget about him until I need help again. A relationship with God needs work every single day. I need to work with him and thank him for all that he does for me and thank him for my suffering because in the end it brings me closer to him. What I didn’t realize before this book was that suffering is a blessing and I just need to be willing to except and thank God for these blessings.