To cover long distances you need to have a good a pair of shoes! A pair of shoes that are comfortable, and at the same time durable, suitable for smooth as well as for rough roads. Be sure that you don’t need to take a second pair with you just in case because you have one road to take, one specific aim to achieve and a particular destination in mind, so you cannot prepare beforehand for other ‘roads’.

You will undoubtedly stop many times to admire the scenery, to find out more about the path you have taken; to better understand the journey you are on, which many others before you have travelled and left their mark. But be careful! Stop for a while, rest, look around you, absorb whatever you see, hear, and smell, but then allow your shoes to take you back upon your path! If you don’t, you will waste your time on the road and you will never arrive … you will remain at the surface and never delve deeper, especially when you have to pass through dark surroundings in order to face the darkness in your soul!

But remember that you are not alone, and you are not the one who will search and scrutinise yourself. As St Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he gives no account to the judgement of others, nor does he judge himself because it is the Lord who can do this (see 1 Cor 4:3-4). Therefore, steadfast in your shoes, walk before the Lord and allow him to search you to lead you to the depths of your soul, where you will find yourself forgiven and loved by Him.

Psalm 139 : O Lord, You have searched me and know me!
¹ O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
¹⁹ O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
²⁰ those who speak of you maliciously,
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.