“We are in the mountains and the mountains are in us” J.M.
John Muir has been one of my favorite people to ever walk this planet for a long time. In part, this is because he did walk this planet. He walked the Sierra Nevadas, he sat in Yosemite, he felt the heights and depths of the mountains that have been a part of my heart since I was a little kid.
When he uttered those words across a piece of paper, I can feel him sitting on a ridgeline surrounded by granite boulders and sweet pines and snowmelt lakes. I can feel the mountains etching the way into his soul and how the wild must have freed him and comforted him. I can feel this, because I know this, but there’s more to it.
Living here in Guatemala, mountains are everywhere; some that still quake and seep lava and scare the people who live on their slopes. But others are sleeping for good, and stretch over twelve thousand feet into the sky. Every morning on our walk to Llano, I see them and want to be in them. I watch the sunset in the clouds every night over them, and hear them calling. I haven’t figured out what they’re saying yet. But I’ve had mountains on my mind a lot.
It’s the mountains I miss most. I miss waking up in the woods with the ridgeline of a mountain right outside. I miss being able to wander barefoot up into the mountains and find magically old trees that appear impossibly tall. I miss being able to drive up into the Sierra’s and feel the cool wind that comes with the heights of mountains.
But as much as I miss being in the mountains, and as hard as it is to just look up at mountains, Jesus is doing an interesting thing with it. He is showing me His character by giving me figurative mountains. He is teaching me how to climb into my identity in who he says I am over who my friends say I am and over the things I’ve done and like to do. He is showing me that I’ve taken a lot of different trails on the way up, but ultimately I’ve always been climbing. He’s showing me that there is peace in resting in Him and His words, just as there is peace resting on a boulder and just taking in the view. He’s showing me that He is as constant and strong in my life as the mountains are to this world, and that as beautifully and as intentionally as He created the mountains, He created me, and every other beautiful and good thing in this world.
Until I get to be in the mountains again (and I will be jumping with joy and sharing all the photos on the day that I do), I’m so thankful that mountains exist, that I have a view of the mountains every single morning out our bathroom window AND on our walk, and that I am figuring out how to climb over these figurative mountains instead of just cruising past them.
Have a beautiful week and enjoy all the sweet and challenging literal and figurative mountains you can (and for those at home- the cold mornings and fog that come with it)! Don’t forget to comment on this AND share please!
Love y’all!
Cait 🙂
