sometimes I can't see the top. it's covered in clouds, fog, smog. sometimes on the way up the mountain I lose sight of the top. I collapse into a fit of frustration, pain, anger. the confusion of having to wait another day, another week, month - year? I kick the ground, I dig my nails into the dirt til I feel it thick against my skin, I yell til I echo all the way back to the base where I started. I'm done. I'm finished with this climb, this mountain. I can't see the top. it doesn't exist. there is no means because there is no end - therefore this is the end. So I lay there, willingly letting my own self inflicted sorrow rush over me, and I wait. waiting - always waiting - for some kind of salvation.
sometimes you can't see the top of the mountain. quite literally. some mornings here in Pokhara you cannot see the mountaintops - there's a combination of cloud and smog that create a haze over the mountains that make you think they don't even exist anymore. In fact, often if you hadn't seen them before, you wouldn't even believe they are there.
this is how I often feel in life. I question what defines the top of the mountain. I wonder what I am painstakingly, honestly, and in many cases thankfully and joyfully, working towards. what am I really waiting for in this life?
one thing that struck me - a truth I think I've been *waiting* for - is that I don't think God gets annoyed at this frustration. this childish stubbornness that I so frequently buckle to. God is always so gracious. it's like He knows the surrender would come, and He's not annoyed when it finally manifests. It's like He's there with me and He lets me get it all out - then He urges me to TRUST Him that He knows the top of the mountain exists. He reminds me there are better places along the way to stop at then here - this narrow, rocky precipice of the path that is an unavoidable part of the journey. He tells me this is not the end nor an ideal place of rest - but that somewhere up ahead is. And the truth is - I don't know what that place is. I don't know what it looks like. I wouldn't know to stop there if I came across it. All of my trust is placed in the hands of my Creator.
The other day I was watching the latest X-Men and there's a line in it that stuck out to me. Wolverine and the Professor are in the jet, making their way to Washington. Wolverine is asking the Professor to promise that no matter what the outcome of what is about to happen that the Professor needs to gather mutants and restart his school. The scene ends with Wolverine saying, "Trust me." Not the most complicated and profound of statements - but it struck me. Wolverine knew the future. He knew the outcome of what had previously happened. He knew and had experienced the benefits of Charles Xavier's school, and he knew that even if their mission now failed, the school had to be opened because of all of the good that would come from it. Wolverine knew the good that would come from the school. Wolverine had seen and experienced the outcome, and he was fully qualified to offer "trust me" to Professor X in that scene.
That's what God says to us. When I'm at my end - when I'm lying in the dirt, cold, exhausted and stubborn - He says, "trust me." He is the only one that can confidently offer those words to me wherein I should be able to respond in kind. I should be able to say "okay" and just *trust*. There is no reason for me not to trust God. He knows there's a top to this mountain. He created the top of this mountain.
Goodness sakes.
but it's in the waiting that we somehow need to trust. and that's just really hard.
I've been putting off writing this because I don't feel worthy of writing it. No, I'm not having an identity crisis by any means. But the truth is this: I'm still waiting.
I don't know if I have never been waiting. Did that make sense? I mean to say that I am in a constant state of waiting for one thing or another. We all are.
We wait for tea with our breakfast. We wait for lunch. We wait for a dinner that doesn't include rice. We wait for a break. We wait to get home so we can cozy up in front of a fireplace and get out of the snowy weather. We wait for our birthday. We wait for our pay cheque. We wait to be in a relationship. We wait for the perfect date. We wait for the wedding day. We wait for the pregnancy. We wait for the results of whether it's a boy or girl. We wait for the shower gifts so we know what else we need to buy. We wait for the night when we get a full night's sleep again. You get the idea - and how it can spiral quickly into always waiting for the next thing.
life is waiting. the question is how you use your time in the waiting. because if you can embrace where you are and engage where you're at, life doesn't become about the waiting. it becomes about the love of living life in it's absolute fullest sense.
and so I ask myself: am I living life in its absolute fullest sense while I'm waiting? what is the fullest sense of life? is the top of the mountain worth it? because I feel like I've been waiting for the fulfillment or the answer or the end of some things for what feels like a tragically long time. and sometimes - a lot of times - I feel done. I'm done waiting. I'm over it. I just don't care anymore.
But the truth is...I do care. I'm not over it. I'll keep waiting. I'm not done. The best is always yet to come. And I know I won't give up, not because I don't want to, but because it's not up to me. It's up to the One who created this mountain, the One who created me to climb this mountain, the One who beckons me to trust.
check back in a week for of waiting [pt.2: the answer]
