I just got back from an amazing retreat for my MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) group. Our theme this year is Adventures in Mothering, and I just think it's going to be a really great year. They are using an amusement park as a theme which is really cute. At the retreat we played some funny games, got to know each other better, got some training (I'll be a group leader the next two years), sang some songs, and I was asked to share my testimony in the evening before we had a group prayer time. I was SO nervous, but already had it written up as I had shared it in a smaller setting earlier this year, and could think of no decent reason to say "no", so I did it. It was hard because I was going to the retreat to make some new friends, and get to know some aquantinces better, and it felt like putting myself out there in front of almost 50 women was quite the way to do that. Yet we had a great prayer time afterward. That evening and next morning so many people appraoched me to talk. They felt like they got to know me, and maybe made a new friend in me through my transparency, and through that I know friendships will blossom.
I was thinking while I was there at one point, why is it when my husband and his friends get a weekend away, they set out to climb the highest mountain they can find (14,000+ ft by the way)and when I go away we end up sitting in a circle searching the deepest parts of our hearts? These are very different things and yet I think they are the same things in more ways than I know. I think we are both hoping to feel more. Whatever is next, whatever is there to feel, we want to feel more of it.
From the hotel room I was staying in I had a beautiful view of some mountains. (see picture above) I saw a few houses on the top, and some on the bottom. I was thinking about the type of man that would build his house on the top of that mountain, searching for a view to look down on, and the satisfaction of planting his foot on that highest rock. He doesn't mind the threat of the mountain sliding down.
I looked down and thought of the type of man that has built his house in the foothills, happy to wade his feet in the bumbling creek, and to look up at an eagle flying overhead. He's not worried about the potential flood, because he has found his version of beauty and peace.
Have they really done something so different? It might depend on the journey that got them there, and you might need to know that story before you could answer. What were they hoping for? How hard did they have to work and fight to get there? We love saying that the most important parts of life are the journeys. I think that the journey is absolutely important, but what about the moments following?
I am living in the moments after a huge, tragic, and 30 year long journey, and I am in a quiet place. I am home. I meet so many people now who have only known the "me" in Colorado, and they think they know me. I've heard myself described as a peaceful person, with a rooted life, a supermom, and of having a grounded faith. You might wonder why I would ever want to shatter those assumptions. I don't seek to shatter them, so much as I myself am in such awe of what God can do with one single life.
I have lived both at the top of the mountain, and the bottom, and felt long-suffering in both places. It tests your integrity, your faith, and your optimism. But I tend to think there's something important and precious at the end. That story. So someone thinks I'm an amazing person? Nothing amazing ever happened without faith, hope, and love. And if those two men built identical houses, and then shut the doors when they were done, and never came out, who cares where they even are?
I'm saying though, what if they didn't. What if the next traveler came, and they shared their story, and told them the shortcuts, and helped them load their packs with everything they would need.
Without the story of those three things, how would the next person be inspired to put on their packs on and begin their travel? I think we know when it's time to pass these things on. To tell our story. To not shut the door, and thank God it's done, and hold on to the arms of the chair a little too tightly.
I'm trying to go one step further. I like to think about that man, instead of sending that traveler on his way, walked beside him until he got there. That's what I'm trying to do this year. Because I know this trail already. I've got a heart that's full. And I'm ready to share.
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