Coming Down the Mountain

[Stage Notes:: Just finished lunch; wondering]
[iTunes:: On the Road to Beautiful | Charlie Hall]

Have you ever hiked to the top of a mountain? I have been at the top of a couple of them and the hike is always brutal. When we hiked to the top of El Yunque in Puerto Rico, there were sections that had no trail and you had to hold onto various things to keep from sliding down the side of it. There was also this wonderful stuff called Razor Grass that kept the agony going when the trail was visible. The reality is that getting to the top of any mountain is tough, but then it happens. You round a corner, and climb up a few rocks, and......everything parts, and you have reached the peak. The view is breathtaking, and everything that it took to get there is worth it. You don't dare exhale because you are still trying to breathe in every ounce of the moment. The colors, the smells, and the breeze waft over you in a moment that lasts indefinitely. I took this picture at the top of El Yunque. If you can find the horizon, let me know.

Unfortunately, we eventually have to come back down from the mountain. We have to take our pictures, and drink in the last of the experience and move forward.

There are also figurative mountaintops in life. Some are spiritual, some are relational, and some are just seasons in life that we survived. Sometimes we don't even realize we are climbing a mountain, we just know that things are rough and as far as we can remember they always have been. That is of course until we suddenly find ourselves in a clearing and are knocked off of our feet by the grandness of what we are enduring.

Mexicali is for my probably one of the rarest types of mountains in my life. It is a spiritual, relational, and seasonal peak all wrapped in one. It will forever mark a turning point in my life, be it for better or worse I won't know for a little while yet. Just like any mountain top for me, I find myself walking back down with a brain full of questions and very few answers. Ultimately, it is the question 'why?'

Every morning in Mexico I woke up with purpose. At 6:00 in the morning, I had energy and desire to be awake. For once it was my body trying to tell me to sleep and my mind was crying out that we needed to be awake because there was much to do. My body ached from giving piggy back rides the day before and sleeping on the hard ground all night, and I couldn't wait to do it all over again. People opened their lives and their hearts to me and I did the same with them. I did not want to go to bed because it meant that whoever I was talking with had to stop telling me stories about who they are and why they were there. Every day I saw God move in huge ways.

Why can't every day be that way? A lot of people will just simply say, 'Well it just can't.' I say that we can no longer accept that response. I know there are people out there that wake up every day with purpose. I am fairly certain that Mother Theresa did! One thing I was reminded of this week is that we as Americans are not always right. We do not always have the best solution to everything. To believe otherwise is just plain ignorant.

Now I am starting to get angry and frustrated which means it is time to wrap this up. Unfortunately, during some of my travels in Europe, I came to realize that seeing the problems and questioning them does not change anything. Finding a solution to the questions is when things can be changed.

The theme of the week was "Do not conform any longer!" What happens when what we are conforming to is much bigger than we ever imagined?