“There’s always gonna be another mountain, I’m always gonna wanna make it move.”
Life full of ups and downs, of the greatest peaks and the lowest valleys. Yet, every day should teach us the importance of the climb. I can remember sitting in the waiting room of an eye doctor’s office in Virginia Beach last year and Miley Cyrus’s newest song "The Climb" played over the radio. The open line echoed through the room, “I can almost see it, that dream I’m dreaming...” There are moments when something awakens in the soul and I felt it as if my dream was knocking on the door of my heart to remind me it was still there. Still waiting. I was in pursuit of it, but there was a “voice inside my head saying, ‘You’ll never reach it’.”
At the time, I had been through a pretty rough period after a break-up had left me feeling abandoned, alone, and disillusioned, even when close friends and family were all around. I had climbed mountains before, but this mountain looming before me seemed to want to conquer me. There is always a moment during a climb when you hit a wall. Strength seems gone, everything in your body screams for you to stop, but you have to push through. It’s so easy to sit down and just give up. But you can’t, and no one else can push you up the hill either. Though your faith is shaken, you “gotta keep trying, keep your head held high.” There is a goal to reach: to make it all the way to the top where dreams are waiting.
I knew this mountain would conquer me if I didn’t look at it for what it really represented. I was in an “uphill battle” and had to admit that, yes “sometimes I’m gonna have to lose.” But losing is never like we think it will be, at least not on the climb. In the moment of “give up” or defeat, the most important part is the surrender, to admit that you can’t do it on your own, that something else greater inside of you must rise up. It will pull you up through the pain and tears, and whisper, “There’s always gonna be another mountain, you’re always gonna wanna make it move...Be strong...Keep on moving. Keep climbing!”
One foot in front of the other, faith will get you to the top. It’s true that it won’t matter "how fast you get there, or what waits on the other side." At the top, when exhilaration hits, followed by relief and then the joy of completion, you’ll be able to look back down from where you climbed up to see how far your faith has brought you. My faith helped me conquer that mountain and it will help me conquer many others so that one day when I face my Everest, I will remember...
Stay strong. Keep moving. Keep the faith. It’s all about the climb.