I am walking on a road in bare feet. The road is filled with broken glass and rusty nails which pierce my feet and send agonizing pain shooting. The sky is dark and wet. I am soaked and freezing. I reach a fork. The road to the right is filled with more broken glass and rusty nails and dark cold thunderclouds. The road to the left is a gentle grass covered path and the weather to the left is sunny and warm. But the road to the left leads to hell. And the road to the right leads to heaven. I want to choose the road to heaven but the road to hell seems so much more inviting. Help me to stay on the right path. Help me to pass up the enticing comfort and stick with the right path. Help me to pay attention to every broken glass that I can’t avoid and have to step on. Help me to feel the pain as the sharp shards pierce my already flayed soul. Help me focus on my rasping breath in and my gasping breath out. I sense a warm presence as I pay attention, to notice each painful step as if it were my first step, as if I had just learned how to walk. Like a toddler stepping, trying to find my balance. I am lonely and scared as I enter the valley of death. I remember Jesus painful awareness of the nails in his hands and feet. Jesus waiting to die, in agony. His body wracked by pain as my body is while walking. God incarnated in a human body like mine feeling the same type of misery and pain in this corporeal form. The fork in the road keeps reappearing every step like a mirage I can’t shake. Help me as I deal with the depth of panic and feeling of abandonment and that almost overwhelming urge to blot my pain out. Step forward, breath. Another step forward, another breath. The banshees are screeching in my head with each step towards the right. God help my unbelief. Help me to observe the pain, to not run away and not cover up the pain. God grant me the awareness to be present to my pain, to embrace my cross, to help me die so that I can eventually be reborn, to have the faith and trust that accepting and observing the pain can help me find an exit.