AT FIVE MILES AN HOUR
When strength leaves one hand, wisdom must rise in the other.
Photo taken by Marty during a walk near my sister’s place.
We were out walking when I leaned against the tree for a little support. Marty lifted the camera and caught the moment. The sign beside me read five miles an hour.
I was grateful to still be walking.
And aware I was walking differently.
These days Marty sees and witnesses in a way I once did.
Now she is behind the camera.
And I am in the lens.
Some seasons do not ask you to stop.
They ask you to slow down long enough to hear what strength alone never could.
Sometimes the body tells the truth before pride will.
Strength rarely leaves in one moment.
It leaves by inches.
And in the quiet that follows, God shows you what was never leaving.
DEDICATION
To Marty — who stood beside me through the disorienting seasons when I sat wondering what life would look like next. When strength changed, you did not. Your love, support, and steady encouragement kept moving me forward, and often helped me hear what God was calling me toward when I could not hear it clearly myself. And may God always keep you strong enough to pick up the hoe — and gracious enough to keep loving the man who set it down.
To the Holy Spirit — for renewing the inner man when the outer man was changing, for never leaving my side, and for being the steady place I could lean when I did not know which direction to go.
To the reader — who may be carrying private challenges, quiet losses, or a season heavier than mine. May this encourage you to pause, wait, listen, and hear the voice of God in the middle of it all.
To the men entering this season — finishing one work, becoming ready for the next. May you set down what God is asking you to release, and may you not flinch when He places something heavier in the hand that’s free.
SCRIPTURE
“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NKJV)
“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” — 1 Corinthians 4:2 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
We were walking up my sister’s driveway in Truckee. Snow on the pines. Snow on the road. Snow falling soft enough that you could hear it land.
The incline is not steep. It used to be a stretch I walked without thinking about it.
Today my breath was running ahead of my body.
I leaned against the tree just past the sign. I needed it. Just for a second. Just to catch up with myself.
The sign read five miles an hour.
My body was already keeping that speed.
Marty lifted the camera.
The moment held me there.
THE STORY
I stood under that pine and the world went quiet the way winter makes things quiet when fresh snow has just settled.
Five miles an hour.
That was the road’s speed. It was also mine. And somewhere between those two truths, something pulled my thoughts back home.
Months earlier. Different season altogether. Our backyard in Bakersfield. Marty on her knees in the dirt, pulling weeds by hand — we don’t put anything chemical in that soil because the dogs run the yard. She had not asked me to help. She rarely has to. But I saw her working and I wanted to step in.
So I picked up the hoe and walked out into the morning.
The blade bit clean. The weeds came up. The motion came back the way it always does when your hands remember work they used to know. She glanced up and smiled. Still in her season of strength. Down low in the dirt while I stood and worked the blade.
About thirty minutes in, my body started talking. Not loud. Just clear.
I kept going for a few more swings. Pride buys you a little time before truth collects.
Then I set the hoe down. Walked to the chair on the patio. Sat down hard.
Marty kept working. She did not look up. She was not keeping score.
And the loss came in quietly — a knowing that there was a time I would have finished that yard and started another one.
THE MOMENT
I came back to the driveway slowly. To the snow. To the pine. To the sign.
Marty was a few steps ahead, waiting. She did not rush me. She rarely does. She was standing in this season too — watching ground she has not yet walked, with a man she has loved through every version of himself.
That was the garden.
This was the climb.
Two different seasons. Same lesson arriving again — not to scold me, but to show me.
And what I felt under that tree was not weakness. It was witness. The pine was not just holding me up. It was standing with me while God did quieter work.
He was showing me what still remained when the old version of me could not keep pace.
Not who I used to be. Not who I am trying to get back to. What is still here — in this body, at this pace, in this season — under His hand.
I thought I was losing usefulness.
I was being reassigned.
THE TURN
The hoe left my hand. The pen had already taken its place.
I had not noticed the trade in the garden. I almost missed it again on the driveway. God has a way of doing that quietly. He takes one thing slowly enough that the new thing is already in your other hand by the time you realize the first one is gone.
Some changes arrive as losses. Later, you realize they were invitations.
The Sparks were already coming. The book was already forming. The reflections that had been gathering inside me for years were finding their way to the page. And I had been so focused on what was leaving the right hand that I almost missed what God was placing in the left.
And I’ll tell you the part that brings me joy. If one younger man picks up a Spark and does some honest gardening in his own life, the reassignment was worth it.
THE DRIFT
Maybe I should push through it.
Maybe if I just rested up I could get back to where I was.
Maybe usefulness is measured in what the body can still produce.
That voice sounds wise on the surface. It sounds like discipline. It sounds like not giving up.
But underneath it is a refusal — a refusal to listen to what the season is actually saying. A refusal to receive what God is actually handing you. A refusal to accept who you are now, because you are still trying to be who you were.
I know.
Because I drifted there.
For years.
THE REFLECTION
When the hands change, the carrying changes. But the calling does not.
That truth has met me in more than one place now. Once in the dirt. Once in the snow. The same God who slowed me in the garden slowed me on the driveway. The same Spirit who steadied me on a patio chair steadied me again under a pine tree at five miles an hour.
The places changed. The lesson did not.
There are days my body does not love this pace. There are days my spirit does. Both are true at the same time, and I have stopped needing them to agree before I can call this a good day.
Because what God is doing in me now is not finished.
He is still uncovering.
Still forming.
Still showing me what remains beneath what I used to be able to do.
I am still being revealed.
And that may be the holiest work of this season.
At five miles an hour.
WALKAWAY LINE
When strength leaves one hand, wisdom must rise in the other.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What is God uncovering in you that strength was covering up?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father, thank You for meeting me in the garden and meeting me again on the climb. Thank You for the work You gave me when I had the strength to do it. Thank You for the work You are giving me now in a different form. Help me not to grieve the season You have closed. Help me to receive the season You are opening. Renew the inner man. Steady the hand You are filling. Slow me when I need to be slowed. Uncover what You are still revealing. And let me carry what You hand me — not what I used to carry, not what I wish I still carried, but what You are placing in front of me today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~