Lent 2026 · Day 31 & 32: All Those Who Are Wandering Are Just Becoming
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
— The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien
I’ve been around the block a few times. In dating. In life. In trying to figure out who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing here.
And if you looked at my life from the outside at different points, you could probably make a case that I was… wandering. Aimlessly. However, what I was doing...
Pivoting.
Starting over.
Walking away.
Trying something new.
Again and again.
And I think for a long time, even I wondered if I was lost.
When I was 33, I trained for a marathon. Which is funny, because I hate running. Always have. I ran track in high school, but I stuck to high jump, shot put, and discus. I could’ve gone to state. Running? Absolutely not.
But I decided to train anyway. And like everything I do, I didn’t just dip my toe in; I went all in.
Four months of training. Starting with a mile, working up to 25. They say if you can run 25, you can run 26.2. Weekend runs that took hours. Three-mile maintenance runs three times a week. The kind of commitment that makes you question your life choices. The entire time. But, mostly when the alarm went off at 7 in the morning and I had to crawl out of bed to go run 10 miles.
Most people can run a marathon if they’re physically able. The mind is a powerful thing. The real question is, what kind of person willingly does that to themselves?
Apparently… me.
I didn’t do it because I loved running. I did it because of my depression. I needed something to focus on. Something that forced me out of bed. Something that proved to me I could push through my own wiring, not erase it, not outrun it, but learn how to manage what was already there.
And of course, I didn’t just run any marathon. I ran the 27th Florence Marathon. In Italy. Because if I’m going to suffer, I might as well do it internationally.
And I finished it. And I never ran another marathon after that day.
My brother, on the other hand, ran cross country and still runs half marathons pretty regularly. Good for him. Love that for him.
I don’t run anymore. A back injury made long-distance running difficult. So now I play golf.
But the thing is… this was never really about running. It was about me. About how I move through life.
For a long time, I didn’t realize how avoidant I was. How my instinct, when things got hard or uncomfortable, was to leave. To move on. To start over somewhere else.
And if I’m being honest, that didn’t come from nowhere. It’s what I learned. Emotionally unavailable parents. Inconsistent nurturing. You figure out pretty quickly how to take care of yourself, and how to not need too much from anyone else.
Running just happened to be the perfect metaphor for that. Because we like to say life is a marathon, not a sprint.
But no one really talks about what it takes to run a marathon. You don’t just show up and run 26.2 miles.
You train for it. Constantly.
Even when you don’t want to.
Especially when you don’t want to.
And I think that’s the part I’ve been learning. You don’t get through the hard parts of life by running away from them. You get through them by staying. By doing the work. By building the endurance to sit in discomfort instead of escaping it.
You show up.
You try.
You mess up.
You try again.
And somewhere along the way, you get a little better. Or at least… a little more patient, and more conditioned for longevity.
Because that’s really what all of this is about, conditioning. Not just physically, but mentally. The thing I’ve learned, through all of it, is that the brain is powerful.
It can learn new things.
It can adapt.
It can rewire itself.
It can push you to run one more mile even when your body wants to give up.
But it also holds onto old stories.
Old memories.
Old hurts.
Old wounds.
And sometimes, we react to what’s happening today based on something that happened 10, 15, 20 years ago. Like it just happened yesterday. That’s where things get complicated because your body remembers. And we continue to carry that with us everywhere we go.
Into relationships.
Into friendships.
Into how we see people.
Into how we see ourselves.
We meet someone new, and without even realizing it, we’re already rewriting a new story with an old plot. Projecting old pain onto a person who hasn’t done anything yet. Assuming the ending before the story even begins.
I’ve done that.
We all do, in different ways.
But here’s what I understand now that I didn’t fully understand then. Wandering doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means you’re moving.
It means you’re trying.
It means you’re learning, sometimes the hard way, what works and what doesn’t.
It means you’re becoming.
I don’t think life is as linear as we were taught it should be. Career. Marriage. House. Stability.
I tried that version.
It worked… until it didn’t.
And for a long time, I thought maybe that meant I had failed. That I couldn’t stay. That I didn’t know how to build something that lasted.
But now?
I think I was just unwilling to stay in something that wasn’t right for me. That’s not failure. That’s awareness.
So yeah, I’ve wandered.
I’ve left things behind.
I’ve started over more times than I can count.
I’ve made mistakes. Different ones each time, but mistakes all the same.
But I’ve also learned.
I’ve learned to see red flags.
To choose differently.
To choose myself without abandoning myself in the process.
And I’ve learned that new people don’t deserve to carry the weight of old wounds. They deserve a chance to show up as who they are, not who I’m afraid they might be.
I don’t know exactly where all of this is leading. I don’t have some grand, polished answer about destiny. But I do know this, no matter how messy or ugly forward progression feels, it’s still better than falling backwards. And I’m still moving.
Still learning.
Still showing up.
Still trying to build something that feels real.
Not all those who wander are lost.
Some of us are just… on the way.
Lenten Reflection: Not Lost, Just Becoming
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” — Psalm 119:105 (NRSV)
Not a spotlight.
Not a full map.
Just enough light for the next step.
Lent is a season where we’re invited to slow down and pay attention, not just to where we’re going, but how we’re getting there.
And sometimes, it doesn’t feel clear. Sometimes it feels like wandering.
Like circling back.
Like starting over.
But maybe it’s not as chaotic as it feels.
Maybe it’s formation.
Today, sit with this:
🔹 Where in my life does it feel like I’m wandering?
🔹 What have I learned in the seasons I thought were detours?
🔹 Can I trust that I don’t need the whole path, just the next step?
You don’t need to have everything figured out.
You don’t need a perfect plan.
You just need enough light to take the next step forward.
And maybe that’s what becoming looks like.
Let’s keep going.
Take care of yourselves.
And take care of each other. 🩷
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