Brad Sasser - The Road Less Traveled: 23 Life Lessons from the Trail

And He called the twelve to Himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits.

MARK 6:7 NKJV

T he Sun was just beginning to rise as Thomas and I watched my wifes car drive out of sight. We were standing at the Mississippi/ Alabama state line, backpacks loaded, ready to begin our walk across Alabama. It had been around six weeks since Thomas had made the suggestion of a walk to raise funds for Speed the Light.

The last few weeks were a whirlwind of support gathering, trying to find comfortable shoes, and deciding where to stay along the way. Thankfully, we were blessed by family, and several churches, that gave us shelter every night on this week-long walk. All that stood between us and the Georgia line was two hundred and ten miles and several unintended consequences that would teach us the power of two.

One thing you must be prepared for when walking across rural South Alabama is dogs, and I had a great fear of big dogs. This was precipitated by childhood trauma that is best left for another story. One thing was for sure- I did not like big aggressive dogs and was woefully unprepared for these encounters.

Another unplanned issue was the baking sun. In West Alabama, this was not a problem. West Alabama had large trees that provided shade near the sides of the road. Sunburned legs were not a problem there. However, Thomas normally worked the night shift and slept during the day. He had not been in the intense sunlight in many months. When we got to the wiregrass area, the flat farmland, there was no shade on the sides of the road. Tree lines were far from us, and Thomas was baking despite the sunscreen he applied.

Ah, the shoes. One thing I constantly tell new hikers- dont skimp on their shoes. It is much better to have an off-brand pack than off-brand shoes. If the blisters on your feet become overwhelming, you cant hike. Having proper shoes and socks is of utmost importance. Do you care to guess who went cheap on the shoes? Ill give you a hint, he wrote the words you are reading. Yep, this guy. What's two hundred ten miles in shoes never meant for this challenge. Shoes are shoes, right? You live and you learn, but for the walk across Alabama, I was in for a world of hurt.

The hills of West Alabama presented their own problems. We had grown up in the southeast corner of Alabama- we know nothing of the hills in West Alabama. All our knowledge indicated Alabama was flat, apparently, we did not do our homework. There were several grueling hills in West Alabama on US Hwy 84, our route across the entire state, not to mention the one thing neither of us planned for: the Jim Folsom bridge across the Tombigbee River.

The granddaddy of all unplanned hindrances we would encounter was the span bridge across the Tombigbee River. If youve ever driven in West Alabama, you know that logging is one of the main industries. The roads can be a non-stop blast of log trucks. We had been blown back from the roadway several times by the wind gusts of these large trucks and we faced a test; twelve hundred feet across this span bridge, with no shoulder, and the potential for multiple log trucks blowing us off the bridge. This was not the easy walk across Alabama either of us had planned.

We learned a lot about life on this walk across Alabama. For one, life isnt easy, things dont go as planned, you must trust the Lord, and its much better to have someone, a friend, a pastor, a brother or sister in the Lord, by your side. Let me illustrate.

Since I was deathly afraid of big, aggressive dogs, Thomas decided he would take the lead if any dogs charged us. He had grown up with dogs and was an animal lover. I agreed this was an amazing plan, I would hide behind him in the event of a dog encounter. Several times I jumped behind him in fear of the loud bark, but the vicious dogs never materialized. We were blessed that in two hundred and ten miles we only had to deal with a couple of such instances.