Immovable
We came to the mountains this week. I don’t know why, but something about sitting in an old rocking chair, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and looking out at vast, immovable mountains makes me feel closer to Abba.
I think in some deep part of my soul, I wanted to come here to celebrate—to thank God for being faithful in teaching us the same lesson over and over, and proclaim back to Him, “Savior, we made it this far! You’ve carried us through and we still love You and we still love each other.” This mini-trip was an act of celebrating sanctification. Of learning a big, dying-to-self God lesson. Of being set free from things by which we didn’t know we were bound.
And then we got here.
Like I said, sitting on this porch, looking out on the glorious mountains… It makes me feel closer to my Father. That’s why the moment I grabbed a good book and pulled up a rocking chair, He knew I needed to cry. Maybe this wasn’t a celebration. Or maybe it was. All I knew was that my super-strong, Beyoncé-like fearless heart hit the reset button, and before I could stop it, I was a nasty, snotty mess. It wasn’t pretty. But it was needed.
The older I get, the more I realize we may never have it all together. We may never completely learn the lesson God is teaching us right now because we’re still in the process of being made complete. But I think that’s part of why Jesus said to take His (gentle, restful!) yoke upon us—because there are burdens to bear in this life. There are moments of breathlessness and heaviness, when you feel like your sin overwhelms God’s grace and lies sound truer than the truth. And in those moments, we take His yoke upon us and continue to learn from His love. We breathe in and we breathe out, and we remember what’s real. We drive to the mountains with hope in our hearts, and sit on the porch and cry and pray. Cause even though we’re not who we need to be, we’re also not who we were before. He is completing a good work in us. He is giving rest to our souls. He is not finished with us yet.
And those are still reasons to celebrate.
I think that’s what I love most about the mountains—as immovable as they may be, they’re still held together by my Jesus. And in moments when I go from “I will not be moved” to an comically pitiful mess, He’s holding me together, too.
