For over 20 years, I have hiked all the trails above our town thinking I knew just about all there was to know about the trails until a recent hike. I was hiking along a trail just outside of town when I happened to look down and saw something I had missed all these years. 

It was a flat stone measuring about 4 feet square. The stone lies against the hillside at the trail edge. I’ve seen the stone as I hiked by, but this time I noticed a faint etching. I bent down and used my hand to move aside the debris and leaves to see an inscription cut into the stone with the initials “W.L.” followed by what appears to be “Mar 1” atop the number “90.”

I posted a photo of the stone on our community page to see if anyone else had noticed the inscription. The inscription had gone unnoticed. It was interesting to see people chime in to give their two cents worth on what they thought it might mean. 

The opinions about the stone markings varied. Some claimed it was recent as in 1990 or that the grammar used on the inscription was not the abbreviations used at that time. Everyone had an opinion until a city historian explained the etching most likely came from someone in 1890 who was mining along the creek long before the trail system upon which I was hiking was complete. It is assumed a gold miner with the initials “W.L.” was working the area and had the tools with him to chisel his message into the rock. It was inscribed in 1890 a hundred years long before our formal hiking trails were in place and dedicated for public use. In the last 20 years, I’ve never seen a hiker carrying a chisel and hammer that would be required to do such work.

The inscription along the trail reminds me of the marks of obedience we will leave behind in our personal history that will someday remind someone an act of obedience and trust in God took place on that very spot. It will be akin to the stone markers the Lord asked the Israelites to leave behind as a reminder to future generations that God had parted the river and made a way. Those stones remained underwater and out of sight until future travelers making the same crossing needed to be encouraged that God would be with them as He was with those who had traveled this way before.

All acts of obedience leave behind a mark. Some will be hidden by time and the conditions of life. Those hidden marks of obedience will someday be uncovered and used by God to create a witness of encouragement for those passing through the same isolated place.