Two Sides of a Hill

The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand. Psalm 37:23-24

I walked up a ski hill last week.

My husband and I were at a pastors’ conference at Boyne Mountain near Petoskey. I had an hour of freedom, so I thought I’d go for a wander up a hill.

It was a lovely walk at first.  Scrubby crabgrass tickled my ankles.  Dry brown grasshoppers popcorned in the afternoon sunshine. Behind me a small lake had come into view, surrounded by rolling hills of russet and gold.

By the time I was half way up the slope, though, my heart was thumping in protest.  My legs wobbled and whined, and my stone feet begged me to stop.  I wanted to make it to the top, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

When I finally took the last aching steps up that long, long slope, lungs heaving, arms tingling, head light in exultation, I discovered...two guys and a pickup truck.

They raised their heads in surprise as a middle aged lady in dress clothes came huffing up over the crown of the hill.  I gave a little wave and turned around to check out the view.

The top of a ski slope, it turns out, isn’t too exciting.  But that’s okay.  The important part of the story isn't the top. It's the climb.

Life is full of hills. There’s the good stuff of life, and there’s the bad stuff of life, and it’s all hills.

However easy a hill may start out, by the time you get halfway up, you’re going to be tired.  And you’re probably going to want to stop. Sometimes the best you can do is to plod along, one foot in front of the other, and keep aiming for the top.

Of course, the top of a hill isn’t always what you expect.  Sometimes you just get two guys and a truck.

But we look back and see the struggle to get there, and we realize that it didn’t matter what was at the top.  The value was in the climb.  The holding on, the not giving up, the grasshoppers along the way.

From the top we can look back down the hill and remember that Someone climbed another hill for us.  We can watch the feet of our Savior as He plodded along, dragging a cross all the way to the top. And we can witness the love that gives meaning to our every little struggle up every little hill.

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I met Marissa in the ladies’ room at Boyne Mountain.  We exchanged pleasantries, but when she learned I was there with a group of churchy-types she started telling me her story.

It hurt to listen to it.  And it hurt her to tell it.  But she couldn’t stop pouring out the details of the difficulties she and her family were enduring.  She told me of unfairness and heartaches and mistakes and betrayals.

Every moment I expected her to lash out at our group of cheerful Christians, to bring them to task for filling the world with false hope about a God who did not take care of His creations.

And then Marissa, crushed by her world, looked at me and said, “I still believe in Jesus Christ.  But even Jesus Christ wouldn’t put up with this life.”

She was so hurt.  And so sad.  Her hill was so steep that she didn’t know if she could make it.  But Marissa, with every reason to give up, clung to her Savior.  This strong, fragile woman with rebellious eyes and defiant chin chose to claim as her own a name that she might just as well have used as a curse.

There in the middle of a bathroom in the middle of a church worker conference, God was using the strength of a stranger to show me something I needed desperately to see.  He showed me how to make it up a hill.

And you know what?  She was right.  Jesus wouldn’t put up with the hurt she was facing.  He wouldn’t see her wounded heart and do nothing about it.  Love wouldn’t let Him.  He picked up a cross and carried it….up a hill.  For Marissa. For us. For the sake of all who climb hills of hurt, who need something to hold on to.

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Hills, hills.  Looming large and frightening. Leaping with joyous grasshoppers. We go up them all, one foot in front of the other…our Savior by our side.

First published in The Alpena News, October 19, 2013