RMC# 6- Joy and Climbing a Mountain by Moonlight
Joy
Joy is one of my criteria words. It was hard earned. I thought all I wanted to be was happy. But happy has limitations, joy knows no bounds.
Amanda Pickens and I were talking this week about times we felt significant. I proceeded to tell her my true mountaintop story.
I was 20 years old, the summer between my sophomore and junior years at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). I got offered the job to spend the summer working in Colorado at a kid’s camp. I had never been to the mountains. After working the better part of 2 months at an elevation of 9,500 feet I was in really tremendous condition. Toward the end of the camp, we took the older kids on a campout near Breckenridge, at about the 10,000 foot level, just below treeline. We were just below a major reservoir sandwiched between a 13,000 foot mountain and a 14,000 foot mountain. In mountain climbing parlance, climbing a 14,000 foot mountain was significant.
A couple of the counselors, including me, went out and attacked the 13,000 foot mountain. Using hand holds and other techniques we climbed steadily for a couple of hours. When thirsty, we drank out of a small waterfall that was coming from some snowmelt even higher up. To say this was beyond anything I had ever experienced was an understatement. But, it was getting late, so we headed back down.
We got the kids and ourselves fed and had most everyone asleep and were settling into the campfire on a beautiful moonlit night with no clouds anywhere to be seen. One of the senior counselors asked if anyone wanted to try to climb the 14,000 foot mountain by moonlight. 8 to10 of us said we would and we headed out. What you do when you are young…
We quickly climbed above the treeline and were doing the traversing necessary to climb since climbing vertically was extremely tiring. Even in the shape I was in, inhaling and exhaling was labored. Stopping ever more frequently as we neared the top of the mountain we would catch ourselves looking around the valley, seeing the reservoir with the moon’s reflection and other miraculous things not seen from the earth below. We had even climbed to the point we could make out the top of the mountain on the other side of the valley that we had climbed earlier in the day. We kept on climbing and were probably about 500 feet below the summit of the mountain, when the moon went behind some dense clouds. It got really dark, though not cave-like dark, but still making footing treacherous. The clouds looked like they were going to stay, so we headed back down.
Now going down a mountain is not as easy as it seems. You continue to criss-cross down the mountain since going straight down may result in picking up a little speed and… well you really don’t want that. So we were laboring downward when we came to a large talus field. This is an area of small rounded pebbles that have been chipped away from the mountain, weathered and rounded by years of extreme freezing and thawing. This is normally not easy to walk in since it starts to slide away like sand. But one enterprising guy went at it like he was skiing down a mountain. He was pushing the talus down and sliding and then doing a hop turn and sliding down the other way. Well he was moving fast and this looked like a fun and fast way to get off the mountain. The moon was back out (though we had gone down too far to consider going up again) so our footing was pretty well lighted, so we all joined in. What normally would have taken hours to get down we did in minutes whooping and hollering all the way down.
I look back on that night and I don’t remember breathing.
That is Joy.
I have never written about this event. I have told a few people but I was normally met with blank stares since no one seems able to relate to this experience. And I realize now, that this experience was probably beyond anyone’s understanding of life on earth. It was beyond real.
I had three other experiences this weekend that showed me another side of Joy. In each case 3 young women the same age or slightly older than my daughter shared with me something terrible that had happened in their life.
In each case, I do not remember breathing when they told me their stories.
For whatever reason, they trusted me enough to tell me what had happened to them. Not to heal them, not to take the pain away, not to take their fear away, just to listen. Just to pray for them.
That I was so trusted is a new mountaintop for me. That is Joy.
Thank you Amanda for making me think of my story. And thank you, my new mountaintop friends, for trusting in me.
Jesus Christ surrendered his body for us. He did so knowing the Joy that is to come for each and every one of us that believes and trusts in him.
He did so with Joy.
