King Walks.

Midlifers, it’s time to introduce you to King Walks.

King Walks are Long Walks, except my autocorrect corrects ‘Long’ to ‘King’ literally every single time I type ‘Long’, probably because I’m a sloppy typer who habitually types ‘Ling’ which all my smart devices assume means ‘King’ and not ‘Long’.

Are you still with me here?

Because it’s this week’s #midweekmidlifemoment.

You see, there was a whole, long-suffering season my good friend and prolific social media content creator Faith in the Mess by Melissa Neeb walked through with me.

I was dealing with a very heavy thing one winter, and every time I texted her that I’d taken a long walk to pray about it (I live in a more temperate place), I invariably texted her I’d been on a King Walk.

And because she is a Believer who lives in a winter wonderland where kids cross-country ski as a varsity sport, she would send me gorgeous pictures of frozen lakes and snowy woodlands and tell me she’d taken a (shorter) King Walk to pray, too.

We decided that King Walks were a real and necessary thing.

And I’m here for this week’s #midweekmidlifemoment to tell you that King Walks are legit.

There is science that getting outside and moving your body is beneficial (look up your own verified links, people), but I’m convinced there’s something spiritually healing about it, too.

My heavy thing didn’t necessarily get lighter on those King Walks, but it somehow was placed in better perspective.

The action of physically putting one step in front of the other. The deep breaths of fresh air I gulped down on sunny days just like on the cloudy ones. The certainty that the bend in the path I walked would straighten out and eventually take me back home.

These were tactile reminders to me that I could be in the present and also keep moving through it.

I never listened to music because I liked hearing the wind rattle the tree branches on my King Walks that winter. It felt right to be raw in the cold and know something else more rooted than me was just as brittle.

The loud wind in the quiet outside carried away all my hurt words that season. And MAN did I have some words for our not-fragile God.

I liked that my words had movement on those King Walks, that when I prayed them outloud they were ripped from my lips and flung with an appropriate fierceness into the wind.

You can do that too, you know. Go for a King Walk and tell God all about it. The loss, the grief, the hurt and the uncertainty. And you can retrace that path later in a different season, a season when it’s easier to breathe.

A season when thanksgiving flows more easily.

Friend, whatever season you’re in, I recommend a King Walk - a long walk outside with your heart and ears open. A safe place where you speak honest words to creation, the gentle proof that living things survive storms and live to see the sunshine again.

Today, I take great comfort in my King Walks, and deep inside my Midlife heart, I am greatly comforted by the knowledge that our not-fragile, wildly creative and ever-present God loves it when we offer this sacrifice of praise - a simple walk where we chat.

Shake things up, Midlifer. Take a King Walk.