Lord, lead me

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O Lord, I pray that this year I will let you lead me by the belt and take me where I would rather not go. Help me to discern your path for me and to have the courage to follow it, step by step, even though I won't see in advance where it will lead me...

In the below photo (taken yesterday at Montreuil-sur-mer - what link with "Les Misérables"?), for example, are friends that I made thanks to a series of "chance" encounters on the Camino de Santiago in N. Spain in 2006.


A few years afterwards I discovered from Christian (next to me) and Marie-Brigitte (far right) that they'd had a son who died when he was 16. Like me, he was born in 1968. He died on Oct. 10th 1984. My birthday is Oct. 9th. Christian's surname is Frère. His name therefore means "Christian Brother". Factor in the laugh out loud coincidences that led to us meeting 6 times in the space of 7 days and we're left with an example of what I mean by the Lord leading me by the belt. By I had to first discern that a sponsored ride to Santiago was what he wanted me to do that year.

When Christian and Marie-Brigitte found out about my birthday, all they said - with a touching calmness - was "Now we know why we met you." The 2nd photo is one from that pilgrimage in 2006, when we had a meal together in Portomarin. The other couple are Jean-Marie and Danielle Coudron, former colleagues of the Frères who have also stayed good friends with me. I stayed the night with them on my sponsored cycle in 2015 from Berlin to the Normandy beaches.

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