Lessons on Life and Love Found On a 14er

I never knew I loved mountains until I saw them for the first time.  From that point, April of 2008, I began to wonder how I had ever truly lived with out them.  How I had ever learned anything about anything before I set eyes on the most deafeningly beautiful of God's natural wonders.  The stones cry out the glory of the Lord, but especially in the Rockies.

Some of the most important lessons I have learned about life and love and happiness have come through the teachings of these monstrous outcroppings of solid glory.  I learned another one this week.  And it was a big one.

I have hinted repeatedly at the difficulties of the last year.  It struck me recently that this year has been simultaneously the best and worst year of my entire existence.  I married the woman I have been searching for my entire life 371 days ago.  A day earlier a family in the church, a family that had been born, raised, confirmed, married and had their children baptized in the church I was serving, notified me that they would be seeking out a new place to live and grow in the grace of Jesus.  They were leaving because, though they had never left the church for more than the collection of days that was their college education, they no longer felt as though they belonged.  In fact, the were realizing that they were not welcome.  The people who had pledged to raise the husband of this family in the faith, that had pledged to raise their children in the faith, had abandoned them and made it clear they were not welcome.  This was the first family to do this in my time there, but certainly not the last.

This pebble rolling down hill, started an avalanche of issues between myself and the leadership of this church.  As my marriage began, my ministry began its end.  Through 6 and some odd torturous months, my depression and anxiety and pain increased.  Eventually it became too much to bear any longer.  The attacks upon my credibility, my character and my ministry grew so burdensome that I feared my fledgling marriage would fail under the strain.  I made the easiest difficult decision of my entire life.  I decided it was time for the church and I to part ways for the good of us both.  As I stated my purpose, I thought the pain would begin to ebb.  Instead, its flow was renewed in shocking ferocity.  I wanted to quit..everything.

Tuesday morning Megan and I started a trek that has changed us both deeply.  We set out from Grays Peak Trailhead for an 8 mile round trip journey that would take us even further into ourselves.

As with all hikes at their outset, we began with great joy and expectation.  With confidence that all would be well.  It didn't take long for our lungs to remind us that we were entering new territory.  Worthy though the goal may be, the going would not be easy and the way would be rocky, rough and in some places, unforgivingly difficult.  After the first 2 hours, we had cleared the first two thirds of the one way distance and were greeted by the hardest part of the uphill journey.  2 hours later we arrived.  It was in those two hours, that I learned something deep and true about my marriage and its first year of existence.

Megan had never been to the elevation that we had camped at, let alone any of the 3300 feet that stood between us and the summit when we began.  I had been there before, but that was 30 pounds and a lot of life ago.  As we climbed, always together, the going got worse and worse.  More and more, our lungs seemed to be doing less and less with every foot gained.  I kept asking Megan how she was doing, hoping beyond hope that she would say that she was done and we had to turn back.  After a year of pain, every step seemed to be too much.  I wanted to quit... again.  But everytime Megan would look at me and say "I want to make it.  We need to make it.  Let's keep going."  It felt as if she knew what I was thinking.  It was as if we were back in those horrible days at the church.  When she would look at me suffering and falling deeper and deeper into sorrow and she would say to me " This isn't about you.  This isn't your fault.  Please, keep going.  WE will get through this.  We are going to make it."

Megan revealed to me after we had gotten off the mountain that she had wanted to quit too.  But When she was ready to turn it in, I would say something that would encourage her to continue on.  To take another step, no matter how little she wanted to take it.  As we hiked up Gray's Peak, roundly considered one of the easier 14ers in Colorado, I realized why Megan and I were able to truly celebrate our anniversary.  We had been doing this all year long.

As life heaved all that it had at us, as each of us in our turns had wondered if we would ever make it, something kept us together.  When many wondered how we would survive the year we had endured, Someone, kept us trudging and slogging on.  Taking just one more step, because that was all we could think about doing.  Just one more.  Just one more.  Always, just one more.

We have done many of the things you are not supposed to do in the first year of marriage.  We have now left three jobs, moved across the country once, with another huge move in the making.  We moved in with her parents.  As we have counted the tally of the wounds we have taken this year, we find ourselves in awe and wonder at how we have been delivered to the other side of these things, not only in tact, but in a better place than we were when we started 371 days ago.

I have just realized, as I type these words, the reason.

"Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

8 There was a man all alone;
    he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
    yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
    “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
    a miserable business!

9 Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

The word of God has been active in out lives, our relationship and our marriage.  Sometimes, even without our knowledge.  This is the three fold cord.  At times in this year long trek, I have been broken, more often than not it seems.  But the bond between Megan and I that was born of the Holy Spirit and forged by the One True God, has kept us from falling apart in the midst of my breaking.  So it was also in the times when Megan was strained and broken.  By a miracle of Jesus, I was strong when she was weak.   

But more impportantly, in the times that both of us were frayed and failing, God, our beloved Father and the giver of all good gifts was their, binding us to each other and providing us the only strength that we ever needed.  His own.  

He is why we can happily and truthfully say that, despite what appears on paper to be one of the more brutal first years of marriage a couple could have, we are more in love and more deeply entwined with each other than ever.  And our hike to Grays was the perfect image for it.  

There will be many more summits in our future, both figurative and literal.  We still have much to learn.  I am certain, however, that we are and will be ready when they come.  I know this because God has tied us together with His all sustaining love.  The only love that can do all things.  That can sustain all things.  That can provide all things.  In this love, we tied ourselves together 371 days ago before God and everyone.  And in this love we will stand for the next 371 and beyond.  

When I married Megan I never imagined just how amazing her love for me could be.  I never imagined how great my love for her would become.  I never imagined that we would have the year we would have together.  I wouldn't wish the pain of this year on anyone, but I wouldn't withhold the deep and true love that has grown from it from anyone either.