This weekend, I decided to try ice climbing. I love the idea of trying new things.   I am a Tomboy at heart. Never minded dirt, exhilarated by challenge, and incessantly curious.  I feel a heightened sense of well being when a new experience whispers my name. I come alive, get giddy with excitement, and weep with joy all at the same time. To me, this is life in Technicolor. That’s not to say that I see the rest of my days in grey scale. I feel contentment in the daily flow of life in all its highs and lows.  It is the brick and mortar of my days; the sweat equity of building my legacy. But if daily living shapes the story of my life, then adventures are the punctuation marks that give the sentences of my days more clarity.

They bring a greater connectedness to something deep inside me. It’s as if I hold the hand of the little girl that was fearless and simple; had dirty knees and day dreamed. To some it seems crazy, to some foolish, and to some unrelate-able.   But for me, it makes perfect sense. I’m really enjoying the freedom of giving this girl permission to dream, explore and experience. I feel like I was built for it, and as I honor that, I feel the pleasure of God – can almost see him throw His head back in laughter and sheer delight as I hold her hand once again and unwrap the gift of a new experience.

 This place of permission is new to me. Permission to just be me. To not stuff it, hide it, shrink it, or sequester it in order to appease someone else’s green-eyed monster, expectation, or standard. Flaws and all, I get to be me.  For years, it was important that life’s focus be about the people I loved – their needs, desires and well… their becoming. I know I am better for it. But while I wouldn’t trade love’s expression, that season did create a dichotomy between shaping and eclipsing who I was.  One day I listened to a talk about dreaming. On the drive home I tried to think of dreams I had. I rummaged through memories, and emptiness echoed back. In a hollow moment I realized I had forgotten how to dream. I couldn’t think of one. My dreams were for and about everyone else.   While life hummed along, and was full of rich relationships and activity, a deep part of who I was had become an apparition.

I’m enjoying getting to know me – my heart, my desires, how I’m made and what I’m made of.  Where are my walls, and my limits? Which of those are self made, which are mirages imposed by others. Can I oppose those, push to redefine, and dare I say take up more space.

Yes.

I’m discovering more and more of what God intended when He thought me up.  I am learning to value my uniqueness.  And on top of a 120 foot frozen waterfall high up in a mountain, legs on fire, and no strength left to kick my foot into the ice one more time, I pushed through the limitations in my body and mind and felt life expand just a bit more.

There is a mystery hidden inside value and honor. Not just for things around us, but in us. It carries a law of attraction or a magnetic pull of some kind. It’s as if the hand that penned the universe, the center of all things conspires with our cooperation to bring things in our world together in uncanny ways. It creates a force that brings inexplicable ease and harmony. As we expand, the people around us live in the pull of that, and expand as well. Relationships and attitudes shift. As I walk closer to the center of intention, I feel my husband’s resistance to my ideas being replaced with support and wise counsel.   I now feel championed by him. Our differences compliment one another, and we walk in harmony while still desiring very different experiences. That is a mystery. And the life script played out surpasses anything we could ever have imagined for ourselves. On this trip I saw this mysterious conspiracy unfold in a poignant moment between my children.

As I was planning the trip, my 11-year-old daughter Faith begged to come. After much research, we decided to let her. My husband didn’t want to join, but quickly and resolutely offered to pay for our son Noah to join us. I shot him a wary look as those two have the least compatible relationship and I didn’t want to play referee on my adventure. Yet the part of me that just spoke with his voice knew that it was right.

While climbing the 700-foot ascent to the frozen waterfall, I anticipated an 11-year-old meltdown at some point. After all, it was 3 hours of hard work on steep inclines. Then it happened.  Just before the most difficult leg, at around 650 feet when a small falling rock hit her gloved hand and fear slipped in, along with tears and a strong desire to go home. We rested in a tiny outcropping, and talked about fear. He is the playground bully that wants to rob us and we all have to learn how to stand up to him in life. I could see the emotional baby steps toward courage.  Then her big brother Noah (the antagonist of her life story) sat down beside her.  I cringed inwardly as I thought the situation was about to get worse. Instead something I never would have anticipated happening, happened. Noah put his arm around her, was tender with her heart, and made her smile.  He gave her advice and filled her small efforts with fist bumps and encouragement. I was in awe, and happily moved to the background as he became the hero of her story. I have never been more proud of who he was.  Now, like Hannah Hurnard’s character Much Afraid, Faith has a figurative (and actual) stone of remembrance of the place where she conquered fear. And Noah carries a new awareness of the capacity of his leadership and influence.  As he walked with her across the traverse, with each step I could see them both expanding in size.  Four steps in, the bully was laying in a deep chasm with a bloody nose while the space between their hearts filled.

They say the universe is always expanding.  It makes sense to me that we should be too.  Value is its soil.  I no longer want to hold back. I feel this urge to squeeze in as much of life as possible. I want to stand in the center of intention, take ahold of that little girls hand in one, and His in the other, and explore all the gifts waiting for me in this world, in life experiences and in the people He has for me.  We have somewhere around 28,000 days to live, give or take.  These are the commas of pause and wonder, the exclamation points of awe, and the question marks of mystery that I want to fill my days.

Lisa, John our guide, Faith, me and Noah

A steep ascent, including bouldering around a 12″ ledge, traversing across steep pitches and running waterfall beds up 700 ft to that tiny bit of frozen waterfall at the top center of the picture. Then we ice climbed 130 feet up the frozen waterfall.

The organizer of the festival took this shot from the road. Those tiny specs toward the bottom are 2 belayers and one of us beginning a climb.

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