I have fallen in love with the city of Xi’an, China. The hostel we stayed at is right inside the old city walls. We’ve met people from all over the world. We’ve made friendships and invited these new friends into our morning bible studies, worship sessions and just our life in general.
One friend in particular invited us on a hike. This wasn’t just your normal hike, this was labeled as “the most dangerous hike in the world.” If you know me, you know this was right up my alley. Our friend from Poland had it planned out from start to finish and invited us into that. HOW COOL! The next morning a couple of my teammates and I joined him.
Early morning metro, train and bus rides later we had made it to the base of Mount Hua Shan. Throughout the ticket purchase process we learned that the most dangerous part of “the most dangerous hike in the world” was closed for maintenance. We were all pretty bummed but agreed we would still make the trek up since we had already come this far. Let me tell you what – I am SO glad we did.
Even with the dangerous plank walk closed – this hike was the toughest and most dangerous one I’ve ever and probably will ever do. It was intense. I’m talking stairs going straight up and the skinniest little steps I’ve ever seen. I am still feeling the soreness from the stairs…five days later. Jesus, thank you for the ability to do hard things.
The craziest part about the whole day for me was seeing all of the elderly Chinese men and women doing the hike. I was STRUGGLING for the better part of the day. (Shoutout to Hannah for being the best motivator !!) These elderly men and women were so full of joy and were a big motivation to me to keep going.
Something I realized during my long and strenuous hike was that even though I have never been more physically tired (nope not even comparable to those week long basketball tournaments), I had never been more full of life. It reminded me that even at my lowest points in life, I was and will always be full of JESUS. He is living inside of me, through the tough hikes and my normal everyday life adventures. Not only is each day a gift, each breath we take is too. This is something I’ve always taken for granted and want to be better at remembering when things get tough.
I’ll be back for ya someday, Mount Hua Shan plank walk 😉
(also side-note for those who are concerned the title is a song lyric – I am still very much alive and breathing !!)
