Beauty for Ashes: On the Top of a Mountain

At the beginning of June my husband and I took a road trip to Portland Or, we had planned this over 1,000 mile driving excursion for months, we worked diligently and made extra money to be able to afford it, we arranged for child care with my mom for the 6 days we would be gone, we created itinerary of what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go, we did our research mapped and planned this trip and made sure to go with the intention of building new memories, fond memories, enjoying each others company and doing new things together. One of those memories we created while there, was our experience with Multnomah Falls. Multnomah Falls are the fifth largest in the United States, the Falls cascade more than 600 feet into the Columbia River Gorge below. There is a paved hiking trail that you can take that leads you to the bridge that is about 1/3 of the way up, a truly beautiful sight, the bridge is old, built in 1914. Literally hundreds of people trust the integrity of this bridge daily as they make the trek up to get a better view of the falls. Standing on the bridge you can see clearly the pool the falls gather in before they make their second descent to the pool below, looking up is the top of the falls cascading forcefully as they make there way down to this pool and looking down you see the many faces of on lookers posing for photo's, standing and staring upward, mesmerized by the beauty of God's handy work. But the bridge is not the highest you can go. There is a trail called "Larch Mountain Trail" it is a paved mountain trail that is 1 and 1/4 mi. climb to the top of the falls, at the base of the trail is a sign of dedication from Oct of 1915 when the trail was opened, it amazes me to think of the number of people who have hiked this trail over the years, how many made it all the way up? how many gave up half way and turned around? in reality it is not too bad of a hike, for the avid hiker I'm sure it is a piece of cake, or perhaps a piece of granola since we are talking about hikers, but for the average Joe this requires some effort. And effort is what we put into getting to the top of the mountain that day in early June. Climbing a literal mountain is not too much different than the figurative mountains we face and climb in our life times, I love that about God, how he speaks so freely to us in the parables of life's experiences. I wonder how many of us really listen? I wonder how many times I've missed it? How many times God has gently said "life is like this Michelle" as he gave me some experience with gardening or time with my children, or some other seemingly mundane experience, but I missed it because I was too busy trying to figure it out on my own. This day was not one of those days, this day God spoke to my heart while I was climbing this mountain with my husband and I was grateful for it. Not unlike climbing the mountains we face in our lives, we started off with gusto, excited to see what the top of this beautiful waterfall was like. On the way up I made several observations, I noticed that several other hikers started at or around the same time we did, some a little ahead, some a little behind, and on the way up, people stopped to rest at different points, some stopped to snap pictures or just to admire the view, some got to a certain point and just gave up, turned around and headed back for the bottom. There where points of this trail that came with ease, and some that were rocky and steeper than others. At times my husband was in the lead and I fell behind, and at others I was the one with a sudden burst of energy. We talked to each other on the way up but this was no idle chit chat, this was focused determination to get to the top of this mountain, the things we said were "watch your step here" or " be careful around these loose rocks" we worked as a team, side by side, we climbed, our breathing was heavy and our cheeks red, we were going in the same direction and we were doing it together. I took note of a few other things, when the mountain got steeper we took larger strides using the muscle in our legs to help us pass parts of the tiresome climb more quickly, the higher up we got the more clearly we could see, the view became more open, and suddenly we were looking out over the tops of tall and majestic trees, seeing for what seemed like miles in the distance. As we got closer to the top we realized that all our hard work was going to pay off, yet we really didn't know exactly what to expect. When we got to the top to our surprise the last switchback of the trail went down and not up, sudden relief that was quite welcomed. The trail let off into a beautiful creek, we hiked back and took in all the beauty, huge rocks and boulders lay while water playfully danced around and over them as if being ushered to take its rightful place as part of the cascading falls just up ahead. We explored the fallen tree trunks and the greenery around, Oregon is green in every sense of the term, even tree trunks are covered in green moss. we took pictures, we kissed, we smiled at each other, we enjoyed every minute of it. Then we followed the water down to find the top of the water fall, when we got closer a paved trail was presented before us and now stairs going down to a round wooden deck with a rail around it a little taller than waist high, when we got there, there was only a couple of people standing there, taking photo's and video. It was breathtaking, I'm not sure what was better, the view and the excitement of the water falling right before us or the sense of accomplishment that we did this and we did this together, see this was a new experience for us, we had never done anything like this before, it literally brought tears to my eyes to stand there and realize the symbolism in climbing that mountain together, it took us about an hours time to climb it, and as I stood there I thought about the people we saw turn back, how they don't know what they missed out on, and what if we had turned back? what if we had given up? and how at this moment I wasn't too sure that I was talking about the falls any more. This was one of those moments in life when you come out of it changed, for a brief moment we stood there and we knew we had accomplished something, we had built a great memory, we had had an adventure and we did it together. Life isn't all mountain top experiences, we wish it was, but I'm convinced that if all of life was lived on top of the mountain then we would become calloused to the beauty and our wandering hearts would begin to complain and seek for something more, so back down the mountain we must go, for now. The great thing about the mountain top is that you remember what is like to see clearly, to see the whole picture, and these are tools we take with us back down and when we get back to that level ground where the day to day life is lived out, it is just a little bit higher then it was before, the valleys are a little bit easier to avoid and we allow the moments on that mountain top to spur us onto and into greater works. I'm grateful for this experience and also for the experience of climbing to the top of Multnomah falls.