Climbing Mountians

Mountians. I love the mountains. I always have. While many love the beach and prefer that as their summer getaway the quietness and beauty of the mountains call me. I love the challenge of a hike, the change of the scenery, the variety of wildlife and plants, and the refreshing greens and streams.

God was preparing my heart for the mountains ahead even when I didn’t know it. About a week before my husband’s confession to having an affair, I was busy antiquing furniture, and packing up our house for our new move. I felt overwhelmed trying to get the house all packed up. With my husband working shift work and knowing we had a yard sale also coming that weekend, I was in crazy mode. I was listening to Christian music while I worked on the house and the song “Still” by Hillary Scott really spoke to me. The chorus words are “You’re parting waters, making a way for me. You’re moving mountains, that I don’t even see. You’ve answered my prayer, before I even speak. All you need for me to be is still.”

At the time I linked those works to the new adventure of the move away from family and my stress and feelings about the move. But now I know that the mountains I couldn’t see were coming, but God was helping to prepare my heart.

The first Sunday when we came to church after the confession, I was desperate to hear from God. We were running late and came in during the worship. One of the ladies at church turned around and saw us squeezing into the row behind her. She looked and pointed at me and said “You are a mountain mover.”

Over and over God kept bringing scripture to me about mountains. One night I was depressed and hurting and crawled into bed with my Bible pulling the sheets over my head. I started reading in Isaiah when I came across these verses:

“See, I will make you into a sharp threshing board, new, with many teeth. You will thresh mountains and pulverize them and make hills into chaff. You will winnow them and a wind will carry them away, a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the Lord; you will boast in the Holy One of Israel.  Isaiah 41:15-16

My heart stopped when reading this because the words just spoke right to my heart. The Holy Spirit was right there speaking to me. I cried and clung to the words.

God was so real during this time. I do believe that when we are struggling with something we are often in a position to be more open and desperate for Him, thus sometimes more sensitive to His voice. My husband’s voice was pushing in on me during this time as well. He was understandably distressed that I would leave him, after coming forth with the confession. But as I had so much to process and think about, I chose to take a short getaway to the mountains to have some space to focus on God. So I packed up, took the kids to grandma’s and headed to my best friend’s house in Tennessee.

Two of the days I was there I drove to the mountains and took a hike up to several waterfalls. I found a big rock at the top of the falls to sit on. I prayed, worshipped, read the Bible and just tried to soak up His presence. The first day the waterfalls were small, and weren’t pouring tons of water. It was quiet and peaceful. I told God that if I was to stay He was going to have to show me how to climb the mountains.

Two days later I came back to hike again. This time it had been raining the day before and was still drizzling. The same trails and areas I had walked through looked completely different. There were little waterfalls everywhere in places there hadn’t been two days earlier. Both waterfalls that had been more of a trickle were thundering with water this day. I decided to take a longer hike. There was water running down the trail in several places. 

There were several of these brightly colored newts along the trail. Trees had fallen over the trails at different points. One tree was so big I had to try climbing up the slope to get around it and back to the trail. As I tried climbing up my feet slid downwards with the mud. Along the trail I fell many times. The trail continued on and on. I started getting worried because it was getting late and I saw no end in sight. When I walked I prayed or sang songs off and on. The thing I realized was that as long as I was singing and worshipping the journey was easier. When I was silent and started worrying about the hours of time that were ticking by without finding the trail end, the journey was difficult. Thankfully after about 4 hours I found my way out and back to my car.  But even during this practical life experience, God was teaching me a spiritual lesson that praising and trusting in Him during this journey is going to make it bearable. That I have to fix my eyes on Him, and He will lead me through this.

This was a valueble time for me in this journey of healing. I came back more at peace. Though I had not made a final decision to permanently stay with my spouse, I felt that that was where God wanted me at the time, and I was comforted knowing God was with me through this.