In the Beginning: The First Steps of Walk with Him

Every story starts somewhere.

The first section of Walk with Him is called In the Beginning.

When I started writing it, I thought I was looking backward at where my story began. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was really asking a bigger question:

How far back does any of our story go?

The section is made up of four chapters: Before Your First Breath, Wonder, The First Separation, and Never Alone. Together, they move from our beginnings into the relationships, separations, questions, and ordinary moments that begin shaping us long before we realize what's happening.

Before Your First Breath

When did your story begin?

Most of us would probably answer with our birthday. But the older I get, the less convinced I am that our stories begin there.

My parents had to meet. Their parents had to meet. Generations of people made choices, survived difficulties, loved one another, moved across oceans, and lived lives they probably never imagined would eventually become part of mine.

And then there is the question of God.

Looking backward over my own life, I can see fingerprints I completely missed while I was living forward.

Maybe our stories began long before we knew we were part of them.

Wonder

Children are incredibly good at wondering.

Why is the sky blue? How do birds know where to go? Why do people cry?

Then we grow up.

We get busy. We learn answers. We develop routines. Somewhere along the way, many of us stop asking as many questions.

This chapter asks what might happen if we became curious again.

For me, science and faith don't have to compete for that curiosity. The more I learn about our bodies, the universe, relationships, and the world around us, the more questions I seem to have.

Maybe wonder isn't about finding every answer.

Maybe it's about refusing to stop looking.

The First Separation

One of the first things that happens when we're born is separation.

I remember cutting the umbilical cords when each of my daughters was born. At the time, I didn't think much about what that represented. Looking backward, I see it differently.

Life is filled with separations.

Some we choose. Some we don't. Some hurt. Some allow us to grow. Sometimes we don't understand what a separation was producing in us until years later.

That led me back to the story of Adam and Eve and another kind of separation: humanity moving away from God.

But the more I read Scripture, the more I notice something.

People separate.

God pursues.

Never Alone

Have you ever felt completely alone, even while surrounded by people?

I have.

Yet when I look backward at some of those seasons, I keep finding people who appeared at just the right time. A friend. A family member. A boss. Sometimes someone who probably had no idea how important one ordinary conversation would become.

It's made me wonder how often I've asked God for help while overlooking the people He had already placed beside me.

Maybe one of the ways God walks with us is through people willing to walk with us too.

Where the Path Leads Next

Those four chapters make up the beginning of Walk with Him.

They don't answer everything. They're not supposed to.

They take us from one question:

Where did my story begin?

to the question at the center of Section II:

Who am I becoming?

That's where I'm writing now.

And just like the first section, I'm not entirely sure what I'll discover until I get there.