Final Thoughts...

Well… I’m here, home, ‘safe’, and relatively sound. I have so many things I could share from the last month that I don’t know where even to start. First and foremost, the trip I took with my family and friends was simply amazing. Every person on the trip, every step taken, and every rain storm we encountered seemed to have a divine purpose that drew us closer together as a group and closer to God. Life-stories dominated the content of the trip which simply means that each of us spent hours sharing the core things in our lives with one another, anything and everything was fair game, God, family, struggles, successes, tears…you name it. You can’t get much more vulnerable than we did on this trip. (side note: If you have never told the story of your life to your friends and family, do it. There is something intimately moving about sharing your life with someone, and unfortunately our westernized society is so hung up on putting up fronts and facades that no one is willing to bare their triumphs and tragedies in ways that allow them to be truly known.) I can’t adequately share how powerful, draining, and fulfilling this trip was, so I’m not going to waste any more words on feeble explanations. Suffice it to say that I thank God for it, for his hand was almost tangibly present.

The summit of my two summers that this last trip was for me, leads me to think of the current situation that I find myself in now. I am back in the valley, both literally and figuratively. Skagit Valley is my home and here I sit on a beautiful afternoon with the sun shining down and the wind blowing ‘round. The mountains seem distant and hidden, and with them all the raw experiences and breakthroughs that occurred. Only memories and pictures can remind me of the happenings of these last two summers. I can’t help but wonder, What now? I dare not say that life will be the same here in the valley. The sights become normal once again, the comfort level has greatly increased with the addition of showers and microwave ovens, and email has once again gripped my social life. The purity of life that I experienced living in a little logging camp turned Christian commune in the middle of nowhere has once again been blasted by the barrage of advertising that we see here everyday. I won’t even pretend to say or think that I can re-live these exact experiences in the valley. Why is a walk with Christ characterized so well by and ebb and flow of the tide? Why can’t I live on the mountaintop for the rest of my life? I could postulate a thousand different responses for this but the reality of the matter is that the majority of every one of our lives will predominately be spent in the valley. But that is okay.

If our lives truly depended upon where we were in life, we would be in a world of hurt. I can’t help but think that it is not where we are, but who is with us. The same God that was with me on the mountains forming me into who I am now, teaching me to share myself and ask others to do the same, walking with me in a very real way, is the same God that will be with me for the rest of my life no matter the peak or valley that I find myself. It is on this truth that I now live.

I would have said the same thing before my beyond experience. That is that God is with me, and walks with me. But as our good friend Oswald Chambers once shared, the mountain doesn’t necessarily teach us something, it makes us something. Words fail me in my effort to describe what it has ‘made’ me, maybe I’m a little stronger, maybe I’ve got a little more patience, or maybe it simply can’t be described; the truth is that the mountain has drawn me deeper into Christ.

As I look ahead at what is to come and see nothing more that a few steps ahead of me, I can’t help but wonder what storms, peaks, and valleys wait for me ahead. But why worry? It was storms, peaks, and valleys that have drawn me to Christ. So I look forward to what awaits, I look forward to Christ.