Roger, in his 60s, reminds me of a retired actor. He has the face and the charm of someone who may have brushed elbows with Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin years ago, buying cocktails for flappers and being mistaken for being a member of an upper-end underground mob. He talks low, as though he is used to people straining to hear every word he said, and his eyes look intentionally half-closed to give off an air of importance, though really, they sparkle underneath.

“So I’m driving this hot rod, right?” he begins his story, his one brother and two sisters leaning in close, surrounded by their kids and their kids’ kids. We had survived the 12-hour car trip to Sioux Falls, S.D., for my mother-in-law’s family reunion, with five of us crammed in a car. We spent the weekend participating in late night card games, drinking in front of the fire pit, feeding each other until we were stuffed and swapping recipes.

On our second day in Sioux Falls, we were sharing after-dinner drinks around the table.

“And I pass this motorcycle. He passes me, and I pass him.” Roger smirks and knows his family isn’t surprised.

“We continue this until…” He pauses and his hand goes up in the air, spinning in a circular motion to signal police car lights. “A cop.”

A giggle rises from the family around the table, mostly followed by knowing eye-rolls.

“So he pulls me over, and the motorcycle, too,” Roger continues. “Walks up to my car. He points at the guy on the bike and asks if I know him.” Roger shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. “I say no.”

Laughter.

“He said, ‘Well you guys seem to be following each other. You’re going a little fast.’ Again, I say, ‘Well, I don’t know the guy.’ And what’s the next thing he tells me?” Roger looks around at his listeners. “He stands back and says…’This is a pretty neat car.’”

Laughter explodes around the table. Kathy, my mother-in-law who is the youngest of the four, has her hands to her face like a little girl, unable to control her laughter.

“And says to slow down and lets me on my way,” he said with a sweep of his hands, as if he had known the cop would say it at the time.

I laughed. I had not shared any stories or interjected any thoughts for the past while, but I was enjoying myself too much. The weekend was more relaxing than I had expected. It also made me reflect more on life, the passing of time and family more than I had planned.

The day before, we had all gathered in Aunt Barb’s garage to watch “home videos.” The adults were excited like kids, covering up all the windows and already swapping stories before the videos even came on. To my surprise, Barb pulled out old-school movie reels.

The garage was hot and stuffy with the door closed. Bright afternoon sunlight peeked its way from behind towels that had been hung in front of the windows, providing just enough light to see the profiles of family members crowded on coolers and folding chairs. As the movie started, there was no sound and the image flickered, but it was in color. Everyone kept excitedly pointing out themselves and recalling details to the stories being depicted on screen.

In one video, a Christmas one, my husband Cody’s grandfather strolled into the mess of wrapping paper and bodies as a strapping young man.

“Look, there’s Dad!” Kathy exclaimed, nudging me. “He walks and talks just like Cody.”

Cody’s grandfather died in 1987. Cody doesn’t remember anything about him, but there he was… tall and lanky, just like Cody. He was wearing a trench coat and a Dobbs hat. Despite his attempt at appearing intimidating and mysterious, Cody’s grandmother was giggling nonstop behind the camera.

I had met his grandmother several times. She passed away a year and a half ago, and the family has never been the same. Cody didn’t talk about it for weeks. She was the one who insisted on yearly reunions and kept the family together. When Cody proposed, he held out to me a tiny dried yellow rose that he kept from her funeral… “The one thing I have that means the most to me,” he had said through glistening eyes. Cody and I used the same yellow flowers in our wedding that had been on her casket.

It had finally come around full circle. When Cody’s grandparents were young, they didn’t plan on getting old. They knew they’d get old, but they didn’t spend their time worrying and trying to prevent the inevitable. So they planned. They celebrated Christmases and raised their babies and went to church and lived the best they could while documenting good memories, and they made it through bad times. They had silly fights and played goofy games and cried happy tears. They were young, just like us. And now they’re gone. But that doesn’t make me sad. It makes me happy and hopeful. Because even though they are gone, they left four happy adults, each with children who have children of their own. As a group, it’s a sight to see…and quite large, really. To imagine that two normal people in love spawned this troop of lovers sparks a bit of hope in me. With their death came new life that is continuing in every which way.

So instead of worrying about the future — what might happen, if I will accomplish enough, or if my life will be significant enough to make a difference — I will be like Roger. I will continue to make stories, tell them and pass them on, and I will continue to love and to hold my family close.

“Alright, people!” Cody shouted, waving his hands in the air to the 30 or so people scattered in Paul’s front yard. Some were playing cornhole, some were still eating their grilled burgers and others were playing volleyball. They finished their serves and their comments and moseyed over to the driveway.

“As most of you know, TJ is leaving for Nepal soon,” he said loudly. I weaseled my way through the group to stand by TJ’s and threw my arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. “It’s going to be a pretty intense mission trip so we thought we would take this opportunity to pray for her before she leaves in a couple days.”

TJ smiled sheepishly. She is a dear friend of ours, and has been our friend since day one of attending Common Ground Christian church. I know from experience there’s actually nothing a bit sheepish about her. Her hair, damp from a swim in the pool, was pulled into pigtails, her cheeks were rosy from the sun, and her crystal blue eyes were happy. She has a fiery personality and loves deeply. She doesn’t think twice about speaking her mind, consequences aside. Yet it has served her, and her friends, well.

“Get in the middle!” our friend Erin said, lovingly nicknamed Noodle because she was so tall, thin and blonde. She nudged TJ.

TJ stepped into the middle of her friends. Of her family. Of the people who have done their best to love her up and down mountains and valleys and tears. The memory of those times only made this night sweeter. TJ has overcome a lot, and there was no doubt in our minds that God has used it all to prepare her for this trip. In Nepal, with a small group of friends, she will encounter victims of sex trafficking, leprosy, and poverty, and will spend time in orphan hospitals. While she has been anxious about the trip, those feelings evaporated as she drew strength from our love.

Granted, it’s an imperfect love; while we are good at praying for each other, hugging each other, and texting each other, we are just as good at hurting and forgetting. We don’t think twice sometimes when putting ourselves first. But moments like this draw in moments like that. And within the circle, grudges are irrelevant. We are reminded that together, we are more than the sum of our parts.

I stared down at all of our feet…painted toenails, sandals, running shoes, wet feet…they’ve all been through so much. They’ve all been stubbed in different places, some have been more broken than others, some get regular pedicures, and others get a beating every day through working out and running. But they all have the ability to both forget those staggers while also carrying them as redemptive scars. They were still present but were never hindering. If anything, they were freeing. And all of these experiences and all of these ever-deepening levels of love were there for TJ that night.

We gathered closer to her, grabbing her hand and placing our hands on her shoulders, her back, her arms. And we prayed. And for a moment, we all forgot ourselves and the broken parts were restored.

I made my way down the winding, gravel driveway that connected the secret world of summer camp with the busy reality of normal life. I was working as a counselor at church camp, and I tried to make the most of my precious two-hour break each day. I usually chose between napping and going on a run. This afternoon, I calculated I would have time for a four-mile run and still be able to shower and rest a bit before dinner. I had already measured earlier in the summer where the two-mile turnaround point was, so I slipped into autopilot.

I approached an intersection, where I was going to be turning right. To my left was a house up on a hill. The only other residence in sight across the fields of corn and the woods was a trailer parked right on the corner of the crossing streets.

I began to hear dogs barking coming from the direction of the hill house. I glanced to my left to see two mutts with shaggy dark hair racing down the hill toward me. They were medium-sized dogs… maybe even on the larger side of medium. I became a little nervous but remembered my runs in high school back home. Whenever dogs would chase me, they always gave up and turned back toward home, playful tails a-wagging.

So I did my best to ignore the dogs by gritting my teeth and closing my eyes, trying to stifle my flight instinct and continued jogging. The dogs ran alongside me for a brief second, then turned around. Small sigh of relief. I tried to let my mind wander… to the girls in my cabin, the evening’s campfire program, my upcoming free weekend… but I couldn’t shake a certain nervousness about my encounter with the loose dogs. I prayed that they would be gone when I came back around. Before I knew it, I had turned around and was approaching the intersection for the second time. I was relieved to see the dogs were nowhere in sight. Yet as I began down the road toward camp, I heard them again.

Maybe my fear was heightened, or maybe I just paid more attention. But I didn’t just hear them bark. I heard their collars tinking with their tags. I heard their paws pound the packed dirt. I heard the snarl of their saliva slap around on their teeth as they shouted at me. I slowed down to a jog, unsure of what to do. They tore at me across the yard, much faster, it seemed, than last time. I kept looking straight ahead, hoping they’d leave me alone once they noticed I was harmless.

Again, they began to travel alongside me. But only for a second. As if in slow motion, I heard the dog on my left… the darker and larger of the two… suck in air as he opened his mouth, aiming at my leg. The air gushed out as his top and bottom teeth dug into both sides of my thigh.

In the tiny span of time that passed between being bitten and reacting, an entire scenario played itself out in my head. It wasn’t my life flashing before my eyes; it was fear catapulting me into the very near future. I saw the dogs tear my 125-lbs. of human flesh to the pavement with a sickening thud. I saw myself trying to flail and shake myself free, and no one was around to hear my cries.

I yelped in a throaty voice and once I regained my composure and my lungs, screamed. Startled, the dogs backed off a little. In a split second, my fear turned to seething anger.

I waved my arms at them and stared them square in the face. “NO!” I snapped as mean and loud as I could possibly muster. “GET AWAY! NO!” They backed up, seeming dazed. I began walking quickly away, calculating in my mind what my next move was. I was a mile away from camp. Walk back? Approach the trailer and ask for help? No one else would be down this road. I knew it. I stopped and stared at the trailer for a bit. It looked abandoned, incredibly dirty, and in all honesty, creepy. Sporting an extra sensitive intuition as well as nerves that were heightened like leaves in a tornado, I chose to walk back.

As I calmed down, constantly checking to see if the dogs were following me, I stopped to examine my leg. My shorts were ripped clear up to the elastic waist band on the left side, I had a deep inch-long cut on the left side of my thigh. Blood had begun to drip clear down to my sock and shoe, staining them red. There were deep scratches clear on the opposite side of my leg. I frowned and realized he managed to nearly fit my entire leg in his mouth.

That was when I started to cry. My anger melted away, and the fear surfaced again. My breathing became a little more labored and hot tears washed salty sweat onto my lips. I sped up my walking, clinging to my shorts to keep them together, as I imagined diseases and rabies traveling to my heart and quickly taking over my body.

The next few minutes passed slowly as I walked. I kept imagining things, like my body all of a sudden showing symptoms of some mad dog disease that I knew must exist. I kept licking my lips… was I foaming at the mouth? I kept feeling my cut throb… was it getting infected?

I finally got back to the camp owner’s house at the foot of the camp driveway. Laverne, the mother and keeper of all that is camp, immediately grabbed me and threw me into the bathroom, pulling soap and alcohol out of nowhere. She demanded that I wash the wound as many times as I could while she called the sheriff and found me an extra pair of her daughter’s shorts.

The sheriff arrived just about the time Laverne’s husband, Dave, drove down from camp in his truck. After filing a report, describing the dogs, and enduring photos of my injuries, I readied myself to go back to camp. Before I did, Dave sat me down.

“I’ve told you counselors before running out there on those roads is dangerous,” Dave said. I looked down sheepishly. I knew he was right. “But now you know what to do when you’re being chased. You stop and you look those mean old dogs right in face.” Dave made a scowl, his bushy eyebrows lowering over his eyes and his wrinkled lips puckering out. He pointed at an imaginary dog in front of him with his big, tan farmer hands. “And you show ‘em you’re not afraid. That usually does the trick. Running will just make ‘em chase ya more.”

That day essentially turned into a metaphorical chalkboard for the three things I learned about how life works:

1.) When something threatens me — my safety, my happiness, my well-being, my peace of mind — sometimes I run. And running makes it worse. Ignoring conflict can lead to anger, which is only a form of hurt and heartache. And these can nuzzle their way into my heart until I don’t know how to root them out anymore. Addressing conflict makes me a stronger and more confident person.

2) While it might have hurt at the time, anything that ever caused me pain didn’t disappear from memory very fast… if ever. I remember every wretched detail of times in my life that have led to heartache. In fact, I still bare some of the scars to prove it. These times made such an impression on me that I’ve since learned to tread lightly the next time around. This has served me well.

3) I better understand God’s discipline and guiding through trials. Why can’t everything be warm and fuzzy when we allow God to lead us? Because we wouldn’t grow… we wouldn’t learn, and we wouldn’t budge.

Sometimes instead of running from the hurt and pain and fear of life, we need to stand our ground and look it in the face. Only then do we learn what life has been trying to teach us all along.

Judging from the light filtering through the thin walls of our tent, I could tell it was early. I dared to move as stiffness and pain shot through my body. The packed dirt had provided no cushioning for us, and I had forgotten our pillows. (Thank goodness my husband is forgiving, and that I am innovative with a backpack of clothes, which I divvied up into two pillow-size piles the night before).

“My neck and back are killing me,” he croaked with a chuckle.

I nodded in agreement. Dew plopped from the trees above onto our tent, rolling down quietly to the ground. We listened to Sugar Creek, swollen well past its usual height, rolling just as faithfully over the rocks as it had all night, lulling us to sleep. We could make out small shadows inching across our tent walls. Cody pointed to one that looked like a caterpillar. I smiled, and we watched it lazily make its way around.

“WAKE UP, CAMPERS!!” I heard our friend Paul shout from his tent. We could hear giggling and sleeping bags rustling.

“SHUT! UP!” Chuck yelled back.

And all was quiet and still for a couple more hours as we ignored Paul and slept in as much as we possibly could. I loved not having a schedule. I loved that I didn’t have to look at my watch, didn’t have to “dress to impress,” didn’t have to be clean or ready for anything in particular. Out here, nothing mattered but the stillness and sharp beauty that surrounded us. I was free from the stifling hard-walled box of my schedule, responsibilities and never-ending Post-it notes and lists.

I never camped as a kid. I’m not sure if it’s because we never asked to camp or if my parents weren’t campers. Either way, as I got older, I felt I had missed out a little bit.

I remember feeling deeply settled when I was outdoors as a young girl. Our home was up against the woods with trees surrounding our house like a horseshoe. My brothers and I made trails zigzagging through the trees as well as a dirt bunker, complete with a plywood board over the top with grass planted on it. It was invisible to the unassuming eye. I would sit in the bunker, essentially in the dirt, and watch life continue around me: Dad mowing the lawn, Mom cleaning the pool, my big brother throwing walnuts at my little brother and my little brother crying or playing in the sandbox.

In those years, the seasons provided unique and changing backdrops to the outside world which I took the time to heed. In the fall, I would let the slow motion of the clouds carry my eyes in patterns as I listened to each dry leaf rustle and sway to the ground. The capricious summers offered the glee of a summer afternoon and the startling suddenness of a storm. Winter spawned vast sheets of snow that seemed to glitter like pools of diamonds under a full moon.

I remember praying often during these seasons because nature was always equated with prayer. Maybe it’s because nature always seems to be more of a friend than a setting. It seems to be the manifested image of a God who appreciates rest, peace and beauty. If I was feeling frazzled or stifled, I could go outside and instantly have space. If I was feeling fragmented, I could find the boundless presence of the sky. If I was feeling unbalanced and fragile, I could find the steadfastness of the rocks and the trees.

Of course, as I got older, I got busier. There was no time for quiet moments outside because there were more important things to do. My clock replaced the sky. My car replaced my walks. My planner replaced the guidance of the sun. My rigid four walls cubed my falsely-lit space in which my thoughts hung around my head like anvils on strings instead of flying up into God’s hands.

Those times before that had provided so much for me passed, unnoticed and unappreciated, as if they had never existed. Over time, I realized that the less I allowed myself to connect with the dirty and beautiful fundamentals of the world outside, the less I allowed myself to connect with the One who made me from it.

So camping takes me back. It’s a way to be a kid again and to grasp the child-like faith that my heavy adult heart sometimes craves. It’s a way to watch bugs innocently crawl along the walls, to see the nighttime sky all night long, to eat gooey sugary midnight snacks and to watch the story of a sunrise.

I’ll take the sticky sweat, dirty feet and fingernails, smoky-smelling hair and the no-makeup naked face any day. It’s how I was made anyway.

When I run, I soar. I sing, I fly, I skip, and I dance in my head as I go. The feeling of flight is a freeing one, but it wasn’t always that way.I began running 11 years ago. I was not athletic; in fact, I was always the chubby girl in school who stood timidly in the back of gym class, praying the ball wouldn’t come near her because what would she do then? The only athletic thing I did that I liked took place in sixth grade: the dreaded mile. I told my friend Ashley, a skinny little thing, that I would run it with her. She walked halfway through; I finished without walking. The chubby girl beat the skinny girl. I screamed and cheered in my head, and I proudly walked to the curb and stretched like a pro, waiting for her to finish.

It was that feeling I remembered when, in seventh grade, my friend Kelly asked me to run track with her. Since the team made no cuts, I figured I had nothing to lose. So we plodded along during track conditioning through early spring. We both dropped out to help manage the baseball team, but that endorphin-stimulated high was intoxicating. And I wanted more of it.

So I went out for the cross-country team in eighth grade. I don’t know what convinced me that this was a good idea, as my coach was a strict, wiry man who was also my history teacher. He was of the intimidating and variety, yet he waited all those practices, when everyone else’s parents came to pick them up. He waited until I came straining and sweating up the hill… the very last one to finish my workout.

“Good job, Lusk. Way to finish,” And then he’d ride off into the sunset as I collapsed into the grass with pain throbbing in my chest, sides and legs. I barely waved bye before he was gone.

While he was strict, with high expectations, he always made sure to encourage us not to walk… no matter how slow we had to run. I clung to that training tip like a lifeline. And it did me good in the end. At the very end of eighth grade, I stood by his desk staring at the high school cross-country sign up sheet taped to the front. I heard rumors — scary rumors — about the conditioning and practice required to be on the team. A friend came up beside me and asked if I was going to run in the fall. I started to shake my head no…

“Of course she is,” Coach said, catching the end of our conversation. “She has to.”

Well. That settled it. My head shake quickly morphed into a nod, and I felt my hand sign the paper, the whole time thinking, OhmanIdon’tknowifIcandothis. I was easily coerced in my younger days. But it was the best choice I ever made.

During my four years of running cross-country and track in high school, I made it through grueling, seven-day camps, at which we worked out twice a day in midsummer heat. I made it through interval sprints uphill over and over and over. I made it through icy winter runs, conditioning for the spring season. I made it through crunches in the dirt at the park as we worked to strengthen our ab muscles and our backs. Sometimes I was sure I wouldn’t make it. Other times I nearly passed out. I logged my miles for every practice and every weekend run. Because of those years and my choice to take a chance, I have the freedom now to throw on my running shoes after a stressful day (sometimes week, sometimes month) and take off for anywhere I want to go. My favorite thing to do is cue up my iPod and set out on an unknown path, exploring new roads and trails. I love to wave at fellow runners as we silently encourage each other through mind messages: You’re doing well. Looking good. Keep it up; you’ll feel better when you’re done. I love to sweat, to hear my heart pound and to stretch long and hard at the end of a run. I love to feel loose strands of hair whip around in the wind. I love to feel the health in my bones and the flex of muscles in my legs, back and arms. I love to be outside in those rare moments where a rumbling storm is brewing on the horizon, the sun is just peeking into the day, or it’s drizzling just enough to give you a second wind. So while I never got a blue ribbon, I did acquire self-discipline. While I never experienced crossing that line first, I experienced the fruits of genuine hard work. And though I never earned a trophy, I learned to value my body, my health and my quality of life. While I can fly now, I had to crawl for quite some time to get here. Sometimes the outcome of your work is different than what you think it’s going to be. And you are more blessed because of it.

Ginger came swaggering down the hall, her shoulders a little cock-eyed because of her age, and her face scrunched up like a little girl laughing at her own mischievousness. She swung her thin arms onto the reception desk in front me, hand over her mouth, trying to stifle a giggle. Behind her, a group of men were congregating outside my brother’s office, shaking hands and talking in loud voices.

I gave Ginger a knowing smile. I just joined the staff at my dad’s construction office two months ago, but Ginger has been here forever; she nearly watched me and my brothers grow up as we scampered in and out of the office to draw Dad pictures with his multi-colored highlighers and red pencils while he worked at his plan desk.

What are you laughing at? I asked her, knowing full well her intent at stopping by my desk was to tell me.

Her soft eyes, lined by barely-there gold-rimmed glasses, were caked with eye makeup, and her jewelry seemed to sparkle, something I noticed even when I was young. With her bleach-blonde hair, cropped short with several strands that flickered when she blinked, she reminded me of a sandy little shitzu puppy. At least half of her big-knuckled fingers had gold or diamond rings. She always seemed to wear two necklaces that made soft noises as she moved, and every day she wore some type of angel pin.

Well, she began, A guy from this excavating company stopped by and wanted to meet your brother. So I brought him back to meet him but I didn’t realize Keith was already there looking at plans.

This brought on a fresh round of stifled laughter.

Keith was from another excavating company that we worked closely with. The two men from competing companies probably weren’t prepared to run into each other at the office they sought business from, but I’m sure the awkwardness wasn’t unbearable. But Ginger found the hilarity of the moment absolutely gleeful, and I couldn’t help but share in the moment.

I grabbed the oversized candy mug on my desk and moved it in her direction.

Oooh! she said, her laughter turning to high-pitched glee. She daintily plucked a Hershey’s kiss and began unwrapping it. I leaned back, unwrapping my own piece of chocolate.

So, are you going to the race this year? I asked her, referring to the Indianapolis 500.

Oh, yeah, she answered quickly. I go every year with some friends. They let me set the pace. I’m a little slow these days, she added, chuckling softly. But I sensed a fragile waft of sadness in her tone.

The fact that Ginger feels her slow gait hinders others made me more aware of her age. And not even in the sense of the number of years she has lived, but the experiences and relationships and events she has been a part of. Though she lives alone now, she has been a daughter, a friend, a wife, a mother, a grandmother. She once kept up with everyone else, her legs strong and sturdy.

She was once a newlywed like me. She once dreamed of what her children might be like, like me. She celebrates her friends’ birthdays, like me. She gets excited when family is in town to take her out to dinner. She still gets a good joke, still flirts when the UPS men drop off plans at the office, and keeps chocolate at her desk to keep us coming around more often.

And maybe she hates living alone, like me. It made me think of all the times her endless stories kept me hanging around her desk longer than I intended and how she always waited to eat lunch until other people were in the break room.

The realization made me very aware of myself. It still hits me sometimes that I’m an adult. That I pay a mortgage, take care of a home and do yard work on Saturday afternoons. It won’t be long before my dreaming of children will become a laughing, dancing reality in my home, God willing. It won’t be long until my six- and seven-month wedding anniversary dates turn into 10- and 20-year anniversary dates, courtesy of a baby-sitter. It won’t be long until my husband and I are face to face, wrinkly and different, yet the same.

And it won’t be long until my own tell-tale signs of old age make me wonder if I made the most of my youth. Of my life.

Ginger’s stories and laughter and desire for human contact remind me what’s important now. Not the spreadsheets or the Post-It notes or the files or the copies or the deadlines or the networking. But the people…messy, hilarious, striving people.

We can reach all our lives and pull as much as we can into it. But in the end, the only treasure waiting at the end is what we have collected along the way.