The day before I took this picture on our hike, my husband and I missed each other.

To an outsider, it may have looked like we were fighting, but that doesn’t completely explain what was going on in my heart.

I felt unseen by him, and as a consequence, my heart felt completely unprotected and vulnerable.

I felt jumbled up all day longggg.

Often, when we have big misses like this, I wonder how we will recover; it always seems so hard in the moment.

Although we still have some deeper issues to process, we did what we knew to do.

We got outside to hike.

He leads.

I follow.

By the time we reached the top of this steep, snow-covered trail, our issues hadn’t disappeared, but we experienced the familiar pattern of connection that has come with hiking hundreds of miles together over the last thirty-eight years.

Yes, there’s still work to be done, but nonetheless…

It is well with my soul.

You see, Jesus is the third cord in my marriage, and nature is my therapy.