We survived the hike!
Thank you so much for your prayers- I needed them.
I don’t claim to have lived a hard life, but I do think I have done some hard things.
I have pushed myself in the mental, emotional, and spiritual. And I have put myself in situations where God HAD to come through in order for things to work out. And He has. And my faith grew because of it. But what I realized on this hike is that I have never been one to push myself in the physical. I have never wanted to run a marathon, hike a mountain, etc. It’s not that I don’t enjoy physical activity, I do!
I’ve just never been much for exerting myself physically for long periods of time. I’m more of a sprinter.
I was a competitive cheerleader for 10 years. We would train all year to perform a 2 and a half minute routine — maybe 4 times.
That’s a sprint.
Perform, Perform, Perform!
Rest.
And I think that’s how I have paced my life, as well.
I try and get everything done real fast…so I can then relax.
I’ve been trying to do life as a sprint.
But here’s the thing — it’s not a sprint.
It’s a damn marathon.
And so was this hike.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done.
I would climb and climb and climb….hike and hike and hike….and still have several more hours to go…and several more days full of hours of hiking and climbing to go… It was ridiculous!
And as soon as I thought I saw the summit in sight (and I would try and sprint to get there), I would arrive just to find out it was what hikers refer to as a ‘false summit’: just a flat spot on the way up to the top. Aka: NOT the end.
Half way up the second mountain on the 3rd day, I cracked.
My muscles were shaking, I was sweating in the 90+ degree African sun, my sunburn hurt, my body ached, but most of all my pride hurt.
I was at the back.
And I sucked at this.
I turned to my teammate Paulina and burst into tears.
“I don’t know if I can do this, P! I am SO tired and this mountain keeps getting taller!”
“What can I do?”, sweet Paulina asked me.
“Just pray for me,” was all I could think to say.
Paulina prayed for me as I sobbed uncontrollably.
She finished praying. She hugged me. I pulled myself together. And we hiked the second half of that beast.
Paulina told me something during the second half of that hike that stuck with me:
“When you push yourself beyond what you think you can do — you raise your mental capacity for yourself — and for what you think is possible”
Essentially: you raise your ceiling of possibility.
When I finished the climb that 3rd day — I knew God had gotten me through it, not my trembling muscles — and I knew that I could now push myself harder than I thought I could. It’s true what they say, “you can do all things through HIM who strengthens you”
So many times on that hike I thought to myself, “I’d feel a lot better about this, if I knew where it ended!”
And one time when I said it aloud, I felt God respond to me saying,
“Do you know when it will ALL end? Do you know when the end goal will be reached in your life?”
And of course my answer was a feeble, “well, no….”
“Then why should this mountain be any different?”
Wow.
That’s a lesson for the books.
Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we are working towards.
We don’t know when we are going to get there.
We can’t see the end.
Every time we think we are nearing the top, the mountain keeps stretching on.
But we keep climbing.
We trust that whatever God has for us on the other side of that mountain —whenever we get there — is going to be worth it.
And it is.
One last quick story to prove that to you:
One of my team members Ruth encouraged us with this word from God on that last day of the hike, when we were climbing Table Mountain….
She said that God had set the table for us for a grand, royal feast! That He was inviting us to sit as His banqueting table. And that we had to climb up to Table Mountain to get to the feast! Sounded good to me 🙂 I have had similar encouragements in my life and God knows I love food analogies, so I went with it.
But when we got to the top of that mountain, lemme tell ya: there was NO feast waiting for us.
The top was covered in clouds, blocking the view. The wind was so strong we could barely pose for some cloudy photos.
It was freeeeezing cold (a vast contrast from the previous days in the scorching sun) and because the weather was like a small hurricane up there, the cable cars were closed and we were forced to face an additional 3 hour climb back down the mountain.
“WHERE IS THIS FEAST YOU INVITED US TO?” I angrily asked Jesus.
“Wait”.
Was the word that welled up inside me.
“Wait for WHAT? The sun is not burning away these clouds, the wind is not slowing down at all, and the cable car operators and shop attendants are not coming back! Wait for what?”
And then I heard it again,
“Be patient.”
“Ok, I’ll be patient but I don’t know what I am waiting for”, I muttered under my breath.
That climb back down the mountain was the worst part of the hike yet.
We were INSIDE a cloud for most of the way and lemme tell ya — clouds look pretty, but you don’t wanna be inside one. It’s not pretty what goes on inside a cloud. It’s like being in a rainstorm without the rain. Just wet, windy, crappiness. No bueno.
Because of the weather, it took us twice as long to get down. It was dark before we reached the bottom of the mountain.
We had hiked from 10am until 8:30pm that day.
We had dinner that night and it was nice, but I forgot that God had promised something more than just ‘nice’ and told me to ‘wait for it’.
A day later, after our hostel fell through and a friend of a friend came out of the blue and invited us to stay with her family until we depart for Swaziland, I found myself on a back deck of a magnificent home overlong the bay in Simon’s Town, South Africa. The gracious family that had taken us in was cooking us a dinner of steak and vegetables and had already poured us glasses of the most delicious South African wine. I watched the gorgeous sunset over the city and took note of how peaceful that cloud looked from here: that innocent-looking cloud hovered over Table Mountain. The food smelled amazing and the family called us together to say grace. As we held hands in a circle to bless the food, they thanked God for sending them their unexpected guests and they asked to be a blessing to us, to give us rest, and to allow us to enjoy the food God had set before us.
And that’s when He said it.
I distinctly felt Jesus say to me,
“This is it. Wasn’t it worth waiting for?”
It brought tears to my eyes.
I stepped away from the group after the prayer and walked to the edge of the porch over looking the city.
“Yes, Jesus. It is worth it. You were right. You are always right.”
And we feasted.
And it was worth it.
I don’t know what God is asking you to be patient for or what mountain you are climbing, but I do know that whatever is on the other side of that mountain – whenever you get there – is going to be worth it.
Right now, I am packing my bags to head to Swaziland for the rest of February.
Swaziland is where my team will begin their ministry and where we will continue to see God work His magic in the lives of many.
I know there will be many more mountains to climb there (hopefully not the hiking kind), but now I have physical tangible proof that He’ll get me through it and it will be worth it.
Keep the faith, friends.
Whatever mountain you’re climbing — He is right there with you.
And He is inviting you to join Him for a royal banqueting feast at the end, if you’ll just hang in there and keep climbing.
Will you accept the invitation?
It might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but it will be worth it.
Cheers.
