#appalchiantrail

[sunnypsyopx]

We out here hiking the AT in the dark 🌄 @valleyhiker570 #bakeovenknob #appalchiantrail #outdooradventures #adventurers #nature #stayfit #stayhealthy #stayhappy #loveyourlife (at Appalachian Trail Bake Oven Knob) https://www.instagram.com/p/CENjcd5H-G4/?igshid=vd8ttetawq2w

[iamrobmorales]

collecting names of the lovers that went wrong || @star.s33d || #iamrobmorales #appalchiantrail #stairwaytoheaven #yellow (at Stairway To Heaven-Appalachian Trail) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoiM8RBBiZA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1dcbeybec35rq

[meditativedez]

[rynehambright]

Leave.

99% of the time my life doesn’t play out like it does for the 20’s something dreamer in every movie about making it in New York City. 99% of the time it’s just a mess. But there’s that 1%, where something so cliched and so incredible happens that it kind of leaves me breathless.

I left home at the age of 19 for a lot of reasons. I won’t deny that. But I also won’t deny that none of those reasons really produced any action until I read something. I know it sounds crazy, that reading a few words from a complete stranger can be the conduit for change, but if it’s happened to you, you know exactly what I mean. And how believable the unbelievable can become.

So picture me, 19, in my bedroom of the double-wide trailer that my mom and I proudly call home, trapped in a town that doesn’t even know it’s dead. For months I had been teetering on the edge of indecision, knowing I wanted more out of life but not sure how to find the confidence to chase it. With no friends and no social life to speak of, I was watching every movie and reading every book I could get my hands on. And then it happened. One paragraph from one author changed everything.

Donald Miller will always be my favorite writer. There’s just something about the pure honesty and vulnerability he writes with that weaves a beautiful story. And has helped me find my own. All this to say, this one passage, the one thing I want to leave everyone with before I chase a new adventure, recently found its way back into my life. After I made the decision to hike the Appalachian Trail, a good friend sent me a passage that she said made her think of me. She had been reading ‘Through Painted Deserts’, Miller’s first novel (though it was originally published under a different title), and it struck a chord. And naturally, just like in the movies, it was the same passsage that had single-handedly given me the courage and the responsibility to leave home some six years ago.

Maybe it can be that for you, too.

“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”

- Donald Miller, 'Through Painted Deserts'