Evening Walk

When supper is over and dishes are done, when summer twilight drifts over the world outside…I take a walk.

I’ve only passed a few houses before my stomach relaxes and I take a deep breath. Somehow out here, in the gentle coolness after the muggy heat of the day, in the quietness of a tree-lined street and houses settling for the night, the tasks and cares of the day fade to their proper size. Out here, my Father’s creation quiets my heart enough to hear Him whisper… ”Be still.”

I walk on, talking to Him quietly as I go, laying my cares at His feet, where they should have been all along.

Sprinklers hiss, filling the air with the scent of wet grass and sidewalk. I catch whiffs of gardenia and rose from summer gardens. Crickets peep unseen in the bushes.

After reaching the school grounds at the end of our street, I turn to my favorite part of this route, a meandering road lined with sedate homes and gnarled live oak trees. Passing through a tunnel of trunks overgrown with ivy, I see it—“the yellow house.” With old-fashioned yellow clapboard siding and peaked gables, lawn spreading on all sides dotted with trees, roses and hydrangeas, and little white porch seemingly perfect for sipping lemonade of a summer’s eve, it seems out of place on a busy Southern California corner. Perhaps a hundred years ago the roads passed quiet and peaceful here and a young couple come west raised a family. I don’t know, but I love to come and gaze at this abode of days gone by, this glimpse of country tranquility amid city bustle.

Twilight darkens to dusk, and I turn toward home. The sky over the treetops blends pale rose to periwinkle. Lights gleam in windows, along pathways, from streetlamps, lining my path.

More tasks await me at home, but I have been reminded that He is God. And in Him is peace—if I will take the time to stop and listen…and sometimes, to take a walk.