From Planless to PCT by Carson
Well, hello there everyone! Heads up, this will be a longer post than normal. It’s a testimony about the awesome ways that the Lord has been guiding me in this past year.
First, a confession. There’s something I haven’t told most of you that I’ve known it for few months now. Here it is:
Next year, God willing, I will be hiking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.
How in the world did this come about? To get the full scope of things we’ll have to go way back.
It all starts with the first 17 years of my life. As most of
you know, I’ve been raised in a devoutly Catholic family since I was born. I’ve
loved it, but there was always one thing that never clicked for me.
I felt like I had never heard the voice of God.
I hadn’t heard a physical voice, or a spiritual one, or
really anything. I felt loved by God, but as far as communication went, it kind
of felt like a one-way conversation for the most part.
This was made harder by the fact that apparently no one else
had this problem. How many youth retreat talks did I go to, or conversations
did I listen to that sounded like this:
“I heard the voice of God telling me…”
“I can hear the Lord telling you…”
“Jesus spoke in my heart right then and then…”
And I could go on and on. Was I spiritually deaf or
something? I never once knew for certain that I was doing God’s will at any
given point. Anytime I thought that I just might have heard some voice, the
same voice would say something dumb about not being able to wait to have
macaroni and cheese for lunch. (Welcome into the deep place that is my mind.)
So then, this takes us to about a year and a half ago. My
family and I were in Louisiana on a discernment retreat to see if we wanted to
become missionaries with FMC. It soon seemed pretty clear that the rest of my
family was ready to join. During prayer, my question to God was whether He
wanted me to go into Intake with my family, or whether it was time for me to
split off. And finally, as I prayed about it, oh finally, all my hard work of
praying for all those years paid off as I heard the rich sound of…
…I didn’t hear anything.
But there was something there that I hadn’t noticed before.
Perhaps it was the first time it had happened, or maybe the other times before
I was more focused on hearing something physical that I missed it.
It was a feeling of peace. Not the overwhelming waves of
peace that some people sometimes talk about, just a small, quiet peace that
showed up anytime I thought about joining FMC. In that moment I wasn’t worried
about leaving home, leaving friends, or the other uncertainties that come with
joining missions. Actually, the peace came in the form of a lack of worrying
about basically anything.
This was the first hint that maybe I was onto something.
So with that, I decided to go into Intake with my family. I
didn’t really have any other plans anyway.
Now for some more background, on a different note.
I’ve always been in love with the outdoors. In backpacking trips, float trips, family nature trips, and in my own meanderings, I found that I felt closest to God the deeper I was in nature (With the exception of an adoration chapel; it’s pretty hard to get closer than that!).
One day, my buddy Hunter mentioned that he wanted to hike
the Appalachian Trail. I soon found out that it’s a long-distance hiking trail
from Georgia to Maine. It goes through 14 states and is almost 2,200 miles
long. Needless to say, I was intrigued. More than intrigued, even. As I did
research and looked at pictures of the trail, I was thoroughly amazed that such
beautiful places existed, and that they were in the United States.
Intriguing.
Back to our spontaneous timeline of events. It’s time for my
next hint in my spiritual life. Fast forward to the point where our application
to FMC had been accepted, and we were now occupied with full time fundraising- and
forming our amazingly awesome spectacular team of mission partners who are
keeping us alive in Costa Rica (quick plug). During this time, I discovered the
John Muir Trail (JMT).
The John Muir Trail is a trail in California that roams
through the Sierra mountains. It’s a little over 200 miles long, and is
regarded as the most beautiful trail in the entire country. I thought, hmmm,
what if we could hike this trail as a family, kind of a reward for finishing
our fundraising? It would only take about two or three weeks. We could borrow
gear from friends. So, I reached out to someone at FMC, and they were open to the idea. I somehow scored a permit, even though I only had about a 2%
chance since they’re in such popular demand. I was very excited; it seemed that
all the doors were opening!
Then they all closed. Problems happened with timing,
expenses, and the fact that I hadn’t exactly told my mom much about it all. Also, we were in the middle of moving and saying goodbyes to all of our friends, after all. Anyway, things came crashing down and the JMT did not happen. I had the feelings of
sadness and disappointment, but surprisingly, that soon faded away into…
…Peace? There it was again! That little hint of peace! I could have been very very depressed at this point, but for the most part I felt content
with the way things were. I had this strange feeling God was holding back his
smile and maybe stifling a laugh, because He knew something I didn’t. Hmmm. A
second experience with a gentle peace.
Intriguing.
Moving steadily forward in our timeline, we’re now in Intake. Here, I was lucky enough to be able to have daily prayer in front of Jesus in the Chapel. But for some reason, as I prayed for the Lord’s guidance in the unknowns and all the other things, thru-hiking (long distance hiking) kept coming to mind. It seemed that my mind was always wandering towards it during prayer, no matter how many times I tried to refocus.
I figured that these thoughts were probably a temptation,
and that God was calling me to give up the idea because He had a better plan
than my desires. But as diligently as I tried to push the thoughts away, they
seemed to come back stronger. I thought: What if I hiked it as a pilgrimage, as
a spiritual journey for myself? Furthermore, what if I used it as a kind of mission
post, to bring Jesus’ love to people along the way?
I decided to take the matter to a spiritual director. He
gave me some things to pray about and some advice.
One thing he said really struck me: "Sometimes, our will and God’s will can line up."
So, the next day, I took it all to deep prayer. One thing
the spiritual director told me was to list the spiritual pros and cons of
whatever I was discerning. Hmm. Ok.
Pros: Solitude. Hours to think and pray alone in God’s
creation. Total dependence on God in times of despair. No technology. I like
backpacking. …the list went on and on.
Cons: Leaving my family. Pooping outside. Bears. …There were
a few more, but there were many more pros.
Another thing my spiritual director told me was to be aware
of the movements of my heart as I prayed about both options:
My heart when thinking about not doing a thru hike: Ba-bum.
Ba-bum. Bum-ba. Ba-bum.
My heart when thinking about doing a thru hike: LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ok, so I have some clarity there.
During this time of prayer, I’d been outside in my hammock. Crazily,
anytime I prayed about thru-hiking, the wind went wild! It was strong enough to
blow my hammock back and forth, whereas before the wind was totally calm or
just a gentle breeze anytime I was thinking about any other options. I couldn’t
help but remembering that one of the forms of the Holy Spirit is the wind. But
wait, it could just be a coincidence. Maybe I’m reading into it too much.
Well, moving on. Let’s just open my bible here and see if it
has anything to say, oh look, here’s the Book of Wisdo-
Wisdom: A mighty wind shall confront them
If that’s a coincidence, I’d better go enter a few lotteries. At this point I’m pretty pumped, so I take this information back to my spiritual director. He says everything checks out. Open door there. I go and talk to a priest. He very enthusiastically encourages me to take the hike (This was a sign in itself; Fr. Albert seems to be more of a live by the book type of priest!). I talk (gulp) to my mom about it. She welcomes it with open arms.
So far, all the
doors have opened.
And now, time to tie everything together.
The peace I felt with the decision to enter Intake with my
family? This was clearly the right choice, as I see it. Not only would I have
never had the daily prayer time to discern all this, or a spiritual director to
guide me, but those months in Intake have been some of the best months of my
life. No regrets!
Remember the other hint of peace? When the John Muir Trail failed to come together? Well, here’s the deal. I've actually decided to hike the 2,650 mile long Pacific Crest Trail; more details about that in the next post. But...
...Included in those 2,650 miles: The John Muir Trail.
I knew He was hiding something! I knew it! Of course I
didn’t know it, but it seems that He said "No" to to the JMT originally because He had
something even bigger and better planned.
As I wrap up this blog post, I ask: What have I learned from
this?
I believe that I’ve learned a little more on how God guides
me specifically. Mind you, during this whole time I still haven’t heard a
voice. But I’ve learned that God can speak through peace and open doors the
same as He can with words; it’s just a little more work to decode what He’s
saying, as His words sometimes are in numerous small hints, rather than one
big, clear message.
So that, my friends, is the end (or should I dramatically
say, the beginning) of this story. In the next post I’ll share the details and
timeline of all this, as well as some FAQ’s hopefully. By the way, originally
this post was around 3,000 words long; I had to leave out a lot of details and
jokes to shorten it :(
Thanks for reading, and if you made it this far reading
every single word, may God bless you for your patience and endurance!
***
Oh, by the way, on the off chance you happen to be reading
this and saying, “Man! God is so good. That story was so amazing. I wonder if
there’s a way I could be a part of God’s providence on this journey of
Carson’s…” Well, if you’re seriously wondering, there is!
The first way that I hope you all will help with is
supplying lots of prayer for this next stage of my life! Thank you so much to
any of you who have already been praying.
More details in the next blog post, but for this thru hike I’m going to need money to buy gear, food, and transportation. In my case, a little more than usual as I’ll be going out of my way to find transportation to try to make it to Sunday and daily Mass as often as I can.
I plan on working for some time on our friends’ farm in Missouri so I’m doing my part, so I’m not just leaving God to supply all my needs while I kick back and relax. But, if you feel called to make any sort of donation, please reach out to me via email!
Here's my email for that or any other questions: carsonacosta7@gmail.com
I appreciate it so so so much, more than you can imagine, and honestly anything helps ($10 of ramen goes a long way!).
Thanks for reading and God bless!
-Carson
