Chapter Thirteen - Slowly, Then All at Once

Someone recently asked me why I love the mountains. Why do I love climbing them when the climb itself is often painful, tedious, daunting, miserable? I didn’t know how to answer him. Then today, perusing old notes and drafts, I discovered that the answer had been written in part three years ago.

What began as a blog post drifted into a lengthy personal crisis of heart and mind that I was not prepared to face. It ended in me lying on a mattress facing a cinderblock Honduran wall, my mind swirling, tears falling silently so as not to disturb my roommates. I strained to see a vision through the fog, but exhaustion and resignation were the victor that night.

I was wrestling with fear and a call. I knew in my heart that God was calling me to leave Kansas City. I didn’t have the courage to acknowledge this, much less follow through. I was too ashamed to re-read what I’d written, let alone post it. What if I posted it, and then remained a coward? I was afraid to appear foolish, I was afraid I would never take the risk, the leap. I was afraid my cowardice and domestication of spirit would triumph, and that my dreams would never be realized.

While this post has been edited for content, it’s amazing to me how many of these fears and hopes have since been conquered or fulfilled. It’s amazing to me that God did indeed lead me here to the mountains, and I cannot believe what He has brought me through since writing this post in spring of 2017. I have grown in these three years, and this growth has often been clumsy, awkward, painful to myself and others... a ministry that I stumbled upon, exploded and then suddenly ended, a spiritual crisis, car wreck, college, corporate, love and heartbreak, missed opportunities.

More notably to me are the God-ordained opportunities gained through the smallest of moments.  Had I slept through that alarm, had eye contact not been met, had so many more things that I had no knowledge of or control over not occurred but that God used to direct my steps. I reflect on the choices that were and were not made that I had no idea would culminate in a life completely different than one I imagined. It has been worth it.

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"I fell in love with the moon the way you fall asleep; softly, slowly, and then all at once.”  The words came out of his mouth calmly, almost dryly, but rippling with undertones of excitement; his indifference belied his fondness as he described it to me.  I was pretty sure he was quoting a meme I’d read before, but I sensed an element of truth to it.  He cast a glance at the moon and didn’t realize his pace had quickened.  And when this young Honduran man said this to me as we walked along on the moonlit dirt road, I knew.  Emotion swept over me, and all at once I knew.

I had fallen in love with the mountains.  Their silhouette rose up above the moonlit skyline.  The hold it had on me was strong, almost gripping. They mocked me with their majestic and sometimes dangerous allure.  Not really the mountains themselves, but everything they symbolized to me.

The seeds were planted in childhood, but even well into my teens I read story after story of incredible adventure, radical obedience and leaps of faith.  I devoured tales such as David Livingstone's African explorations, Katie Davis's courage to leave all against her family’s wishes, Cook and Perry's arctic expeditions, Shackleton's antarctic adventures, and Mike Horn's circumnavigation of the arctic circle.  I read and reread all with enraptured eagerness.

I'd lie awake at night, often laying the book down on my chest mid-paragraph, and close my eyes with sparks of adrenaline coursing through me as I imagined and re-imagined their adventures in my own head.  Visualizing what it was like, the suffering and pain, triumphs and victories, defeats and adventures.  I wanted that more than anything.  Their doggedness, their discipline, their determination no matter the cost... I wanted that!  I wanted to live that life!  I wanted to live dangerously.  I wanted my life to be an adventure.  My brain would almost scream in effort as I would attempt to recreate everything in my minds' eye, trying to really feel every pain, every joy, every longing and heartache, every magnanimous triumph and plummeting defeat.  Each vision fading despite my efforts as the night and sleep swept away the emotion, only to resurrect themselves in dreams amid my slumber.  

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In the youthful stubbornness and immaturity of my teens I was proud that I lived without caring what others thought of me.  I did not fall prey to habits that I'd deemed foolish or peer driven. I had no desire to keep up with trivial and fashionable pursuits.  But it was short-lived, for in my late teens my walls finally broke, and I slowly exhibited shaky efforts to fit in.  I fell prey to people-pleasing and self-righteous performance, and became such the thing that I loathed.  It had crept upon me slowly, and I was bound by it for a decade and more before realizing my captivity.

After spending years being proud of my independence and my ability to go against the tide of peer pressure, I swung on the opposite side of the pendulum.  I felt awkward, and even if it may not have looked like it from the outside, I struggled to relate emotionally in most scenarios.  I’d grown in maturity faster than most, stoic and composed, but found myself caught between being saddled with or volunteering for responsibility that was appropriate for women twice my age, and not knowing how to let loose, have fun, and explore the great world around me.

I was purposeless and seeking purpose for a long time.  I stifled myself, found myself caught hanging in a lurch between mind-numbed security and my dreams.  I floundered often.  I tried to pursue a career because it was the smart thing to do, but despite being academically gifted I despised academia in the traditional sense.  The arrogance held by the majority of my teachers, the sheep-like behavior of my peers, and my inability to relate socially, emotionally, often politically, was incredibly frustrating.  I felt torn in two.  I didn't want to be there, but I understood education to be the path towards whatever it was I truly wanted.

I was bound by fear.  I was afraid to do anything.  I wanted a degree, but I was afraid of wasting time and money.  I wanted to be successful, but I was too afraid to make a decision.  I knew I had what it took to succeed in corporate, but I was afraid of the hold it would take on me.  I was afraid of how I would be seen and who I would become.  Ironically my fear is what was holding me captive, though I would not admit it.  I wanted to stay humble and wise.  But my humility and wisdom were merely a guise for my fear of failure and the exposure of my depravity.  I longed to regain my confidence!  But I didn't want the pride and hypocrisy that went with it.

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There is a longing within me that screams for the mountains.  Something deep within me screams for something and someone higher and bigger than I!  It is in the mountains where I feel the majesty and power of God most strongly.  I hang on to His mercy, for even as the mountains call, they warn of treachery.  I am mesmerized by the power.  How great, how impossible the power that moved them and shaped them.  After seeing them, how can one not believe in Power?

I am reminded of how small I am.  As one prone to pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, it is there that I am struck by my own insignificance, and awed to humility.  Amidst a granted few mountaineering accomplishments, a paradoxical humility remains because I know it is only by the grace of God that any one of a million tragic events did not occur.

The mountains are a gift God gave me at just the time when I needed it most.  I once was a good counseling session with a mentor away from going down a dark path.  I was one wrong word away from driving away and never looking back.

Now I am making decisions and actions that even a year ago I never would have thought possible.  Some good decisions, plenty of poor ones.  A few decisions that have been used in exceptional ways, and a few sinful and foolish that I am striving to revoke.

I am on the verge of joining the corporate world.  I have little doubt that with training I will be successful, but I fear losing myself.  I fear numbing my pain with comfort, with workaholism, with anything that will numb my mind to the pain I have felt and the pain of who I want to be and yet am not.

I recognize that even at my strongest I am incredibly weak.  I am one misstep away from the road that leads to Death.  I don't know what my future holds.  I don't know if I will remain on this path towards the mountains, symbolic or otherwise, or if my Savior is simply using this passion as a tool to grow, mold and shape me.

I am torn between my longing for who I am not and my inability to change who I am.  I am wrapped up in comfort, safety and security.  But I long to heed the call of the wild.  I want to backpack through the Himalayans, I want to climb Denali, I want to meet people who are different from me, who shake me out of my head, who bring me back to reality.  Will I ever have the courage?

The mountains are a strong reminder etched in my heart of God's faithfulness to reveal Himself to me.  A symbolic reminder of the hope He gave me.  A tangible witness to me of His love for me, how He willingly overwhelms me and drowns out my pride by simply being.  When I was lost and reaching for purpose, He saw fit to rise above me and show me how small I really am.