Endurance
This summer my husband was determined to get us all up to a mountain. I hadn’t been for several years due to an injury and I was eager to go too. So before we headed off camping, he researched mountains in the area that we hadn’t climbed but that were relatively easy since it had been awhile and my youngest daughter had a knee injury.
As he mapped out our week, he planned for our final full day as the day to hike. He gets pretty jazzed when we go off on new adventures so my kids and I literally just follow his plan. After all, there has never been a reason not to.
So off we went to this mountain which I wasn’t as “gung ho” for because now, being our last day, meant I was pretty sleep deprived (He sleeps very well in the woods, me not so much) and not feeling my best. My middle child wasn’t feeling great so decided to stay back, my youngest was in a similar state as I was but not wanting to let him down, also just went along.
As we arrived I grabbed my water though it was only suppose to be a about a 1/2 mi up and 1/2 mi back. Should take about 40 min. Since it was a quickie, Hannah and I really didn’t think of food and we all planned to eat when we got down. I figured my yogurt and her pop-tart should hold. (not too bright!)
We began the walk a little later than usual but with pretty happy hearts noticing a lot of cool things here and there. About 30 min in it was getting pretty steep so my husband assumed that we were pretty close to the top. At about another 30 min in we started seeing people descend and asked (fully expecting an “you’re almost there” answer) how much farther…hemming and hawing they said your almost 1/2 way.
Wait? What? Almost half way??
My daughter and I look at my husband, who looked confused. “No, that can’t be right, we should be pretty close. It was only suppose to take 40 min round-trip.”
His provisions are minimal but he breaks some out because we were hungry and thirsty.
More people are coming down. (It is mid-afternoon) and each of them are telling us we are half way now. I am baffled. I know I am not in the greatest shape of my life but I didn’t think that I was that bad!
It’s getting steeper and steeper. We are taking breaks but my husband who is a runner, hiker and avid outdoors man is far less beaten up by this than my daughter and I are. So, okay, push on.
An elderly couple comes down. A couple of babies. A guy with a cane passes us going up. It was crazy, humiliating, hilarious and pathetic.
What the hell. It isn’t as if I have never climbed a bloody mountain.
Someone comes down and says we are about 10 minutes from the top. We are about 1.5 or more hours in. H and I are ugly. We are hungry, thirsty, hurting and hateful. The mountain was pretty steep. (Kick us off the island, we are the weakest links.) My husband in the meantime, never complains, just remains confused. I am praying the rosary in my head because I don’t want to ruin his day but I am livid with him. H too. She leaves both of us. We are all three separated which my husband hates. He likes his girls in his sights on these adventures but we don’t want to be in his sights…we aren’t very fond of him. I see H and ask if she’s okay. With a dark look she simply says, “I love my father.” *This line still cracks me up*
Finally, we stop at what is the top. We get to the top and there is no view. Yes, you read that right, we are at the summit. There is no view.
Only a fire tower.
The fire tower is another 10 mins away.
It is about 4pm. Kind of late for an August hike of 2 hours. There are only 2 other people on the mountain and they are heading down. We have about 8 twizzlers and some trail mix to share. The yogurt and pop-tart have long been used. We have two bottles of water. It is summer. H and I lay down at our “no view” point and kind of just want to cry. My husband is quietly fuming. But now we have wifi so we look up where we are….and we went to the wrong mountain (gee, ya think!) H starts reading the reviews which are hilarious because they are so spot on. The whole thing makes more sense to my husband now. Though, he figured out a while back that he screwed up.
He asks if we want to see the fire tower, which everyone has raved about. Um, yes, that is why we are here, correct? So he does some recon and comes back, updates us, and we rally. Off we go. Trying to be a little more human and a little kinder to my beloved husband. Because all he really wanted to do is something fun. We find the fire tower.
Oh my goodness…all alone, just the three of us, we take it all in. The glory of the view is hard to articulate. But H went to the tippy top of the fire tower and WOW. #worthit
So what does this have to do with Advent?
Well, as I thought about this word for a while, I just kept picturing my husband. His quiet endurance. He was strained, angry, concerned and irritated only he didn’t complain. He just kept going. His running, hiking, yardwork and overall ethic served him on this day. His physical endurance and his inner discipline made me and my daughter rise to the occasion. But also, we didn’t give up. H turned to love for her father to motivate her and I turned to prayer (also out of love, but still prayer.) I remember I kept repeating, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” because honestly, I felt like heck. But I was not going to give up or give in to something that I knew I could do. It was an opportunity to dig deep and rely on everything I knew.
And isn’t that exactly what Mary did? As today’s reading from Romans tells us everything written before was for the moment that was happening now. Mary knew all of the promises, the signs to look for, the strength of God’s covenant. Mary knew the story of Jesse, she knew the songs of justice, she knew that it was all possible that moment when the Angel Gabriel said, “Hail!” She knew because Anne and Joachim made sure that she knew as any good Jewish parents would.
Having endurance as we wait for Christ’s coming is sometimes the hardest part of this Advent experience. After all, it has been a long time. But there will be a payoff, there will be a view, there will be a moment in time when we recognize Christ in the world. When we see just what that can me for us in this life. It may happen when you realize you are down to the last twizzler, but it will happen. Because the one thing that we can know is that God keeps his promises and we will endure.
**Post Note: There is a going down story too. lol**
