This week we leave from Ocqueoc Falls in Michigan and cross Lake Huron into Canada. We travel across Ontario and into Quebec where we go right through the city of Montreal. We then cross back into the United States and end our travels for the week on Big Moose Mountain in Maine.
On Sunday in worship we will read the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob was on his way back to the land of his birth. Years earlier he had tricked his older brother and fled in fear of his life. He took refuge with his mother’s brother in a neighboring country to the north.
On his way home Jacob crossed a river, and their he wrested with a stranger who turned out to be God. We have two border crossings in this week’s route, because the border between our country and our neighbor to the north is not straight. These might be times when we wrestle with God . . . when like Jacob we hand on and say “I won’t let go until you bless me!”
While we’re in Canada we pass through the city of Montreal, the ninth largest city in North America and the second largest French-speaking city in the world. We can admire the architecture including the gorgeous basillica, check out a museum or music venue, and grab some poutine to eat as we continue on our way.
When we leave Quebec we cross into that arm of the United States that reaches up to the Northeast and find ourselves pausing for the week in Maine. We come to the end of our miles near the top of Big Moose Mountain, home of the country’s first fire tower.
Our legs might be trembling after the long climb, so we pray with words written by Charles Wesley:
My strength is gone, my nature dies
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
faint to revive, and fall to rise;
I fall and yet by faith I stand;
I stand and will not let thee go
till I thy name, thy nature know.
I know thee Savior, who thou art,
Jesus, the feeble sinner’s friend;
nor wilt thou with the night depart,
but stay and love me to the end:
thy mercies never shall remove,
thy nature and they name is Love.