Traveling is fun and all. Seeing the world is exciting. But more often than not I encounter more than just the tourists, the locals, and the scenery.
I encounter myself.
It’s both the absolute worst and best part of the journey.
Lies cave in.
Shove, crawl up, shove.
Dust and gravel get embedded into your knees.
Push up off the ground.
Shove the lies push again harder this time.
Scrapes appears on your knees and your hands.
And you feel the call to give up.
I’m not agile. I’m not trained. Yo, I haven’t done life before. Heck, I’ve been world traveling and my body doesn’t look the part. I’m weak.
The fight is hard.
Reaching out for the next supporting object is hard.
Lifting your feet is hard.
The oxygen level is low and your breathing gets heavy.
It’s looked messy. It’s looked frustrating. It’s meant feeling so defeated with myself over and over and over again at my own humanity & brokenness, trying to get back up again. The Lord always brings up things I need to process through, or confront things in my life again and again, and it feels kinda like climbing up a mountain only to be pushed down every time you get close to the summit.
Frantic, I try to gather every piece of those puzzles to piece it back together, to fix the hurts of every single things that confuses me about life, and I’m still sitting on the floor holding the shards wondering how, why, & what I am to do with them. I grow comfortable on that dirty floor of questions. The dust remains caked into my palms.
I’ve grown frustrated with myself in the heart of the struggle. I admit that I am not who I was when I finished my World Race, that girl that had summited the Everest of lies that held her down. I fell to my old self that was full of fear, defeat, and lack of confidence. I get angry at myself, I beat at my heart, willing it to change, willing it to go back. Wondering how on earth I came back to the lies. There are many reasons, I know some of the reasons why, there are more than I can come up with and count; roots and things of the past and what the puzzle pieces of my life have added them up to be.
What it’s been hard for me to realize is this: the process is continual. I will continually have to remind myself the truths of who I am in Christ; what my true identity is. I will have to remind myself when I hear fireworks, firecrackers, or popping balloons that it’s not a shooting and that I am safe and seen by God. I have to remind myself when I feel down and defeated where my confidence is and why I don’t need to care what people think.
He never left.
I have to have grace for myself to know that it will still be a struggle for me. I still have the thoughts I need to fight. I still have the feelings I need to give to God. To choose the truth in Jesus. I am still limited and made of flesh and blood. But my God is limitless. I have to continually renew my mind and train it to believe the truths until they know them without a doubt that they write them on the walls of my brain as I sleep.
It makes me think of Everest here in the Himalayas. I’m never gonna summit that unless I put my mind to it. It’s massive and impossible. I could try and try and then give up. But at least it’d be that I’m trying.
But the heart is in still climbing. It’s not about the summit, it’s the climb in between.
So I’m still climbing.
