by Christy K. Robinson 

It was a fantastic February day—a great time to hike to a desert stream. Springtime in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert is an unusual taste of heaven, but heaven it is. Desert finches and doves send praise hymns heavenward. Yellow brittlebush daisies, red ocotillo tips, lavender larkspur, golden poppies, white something-that-resembles-Queen-Anne’s-lace, and sage-green everything else join with a Picasso-blue sky to create a visual feast. Granite gravel—desert pavement, some call it—crunches underfoot. Creosote scents the air. With temperature in the high 60s, it’s not too hot, even with exertion.          

My eyes and ears are healthy, but an injury to my leg has left me with an unstable knee and paralysis in my ankle and foot. If I take my eyes off the path in front of me, I may slide or trip and injure myself. But I have become used to my disability, and I’m grateful I can usually keep pace with my fellow hikers.         

On this particular hike, my companions were Christian singles from Tucson. We assembled at the trailhead at the top of a hill on a Saturday morning. Our plan was to hike down the switchback trail to a seasonal stream, enjoy a time of worship with music and sharing of ideas, and then eat lunch before the hike back to our cars.         

The group consisted of adults in their 20s to their 60s, plus a few preteen kids. Carla, one of the young adults, was blind, and I admired her courage in negotiating the trail on the arm and voice direction of a friend. It was about a mile to the stream, over a rocky canyon trail. I needed every bit of concentration I could muster to stay upright with my disability, so I didn’t say much as we walked. To enjoy the vista, I would stop and take photos, then hurry on the flat places to catch up.           

As the sun reached its zenith, we reached the canyon floor and found places to sit on giant boulders. We sang and enjoyed the pastor’s homily as the stream played about us (Unless you’ve lived for a while in the desert, you don’t know the joy of finding free-range water). After we had prayed together, we began preparing our picnic lunch. That was when I forgot to watch my step, slipped on a tiny bit of sand on a boulder, and sat down hard on my tailbone. Crunch.           

Although there is an expression about getting your “behind” in a sling, there isn’t much one can actually do for a broken coccyx. The only sling that would have given me comfort would have been one dangling from a medevac helicopter. But this happened a few years ago, when mobile phones were the size of cats and were only for rich people. Besides, we were buried in a rocky canyon. The only solution was to walk out—a long uphill trudge.            

In times of pain, it is sometimes a relief to let off steam with bad words. One of my favorite “bad words” is “Oaxaca” (pronounced wah-HAH-kah), the name of a city in Mexico. It’s not profane or vulgar, but it sounds bad! Here I was, though, a singles ministry leader, in the company of people who expected better of me. And then there was Carla, who, despite her blindness and a few minor stumbles on the path, was having the time of her life. Carla was smiling and singing and gazing wide-eyed at the sky, looking for all the world like Stevie Wonder at his keyboard. No griping for her. I was ashamed even to say Oaxaca.           

Every step—every breath—was literally a pain in the rear, but I made it to the canyon rim without too many moans, said goodbye to my friends, and lowered myself into my low-slung Firebird (ow-ow-ow!) for the two-hour drive home to Phoenix. The car was not built for comfort like a Mercedes or Caddy—I felt every pavement pebble in my backside for the entire 120-mile trip.           

But Carla, riding with me, was “feelin’ no pain.” She had had a glorious day with her friends. She had smelled the flowers and sky, and had felt the desert vastness on the breeze. The ground beneath her feet had told her how to tread, and arms of her friends communicated love. “The LORD opens the eyes of the blind,” I recited to myself, “The LORD raises up those who are bowed down” (Psalm 146:8, NASB).           

With Carla and the Psalmist as my inspiration, I decided my choice was clear. God is faithful, I said to myself. No griping!