Our trusty Honda Odyssey chugs along Highway 70. It’s a straight shot from our house to Colorado Springs and Estes Park; our first family vacation to the mountains. We’ve always prioritized adventuring together, even as our crew grew from two to six people in a span of six, short years. Throw in an au pair, my parents, and our two puppies, and you’ve got a noisy caravan stuffed to the ceiling on this particular journey. We usually fly to our destinations, but rising costs, time logistics, and the pleas from nearly half of the tribe for a fun, family road trip shifted the needle toward the 13-hour drive instead. So, here we ride for two full days, taking in the view from the ground rather than the sky, and finding that each dawn brings more wonder and marveling than the last.
When we finally make our way into the state of Colorado, our conversations center on the vast plains and the sparse agriculture varying widely from our rolling, Missouri hills. As our drive continues and the first tree-lined peaks appear, excited whispers begin to trickle in from the backseat. It’s the first time our kids have seen the mountains and they’re struck by the enormity of even the smallest ones, rightfully so. When we make the trek to a nearby canyon on day three, the whole car erupts in awe at the craggy, rust-colored structures lining our path and the sight of the earth cracked open as it makes room for the river to have its way below. On day four, we pile everyone back into that beloved swagger-wagon and make the drive up to Estes Park, crossing into the Rockies with its winding, narrow roads, and white-crested creeks snaking their way through the tiny mountain town. Unlike our suburban, Midwestern life, filled to the brim with flashy billboards and seemingly endless new construction, the Colorado skyline seems to stretch on for miles.
I imagine families of old, trekking through these towering pines, braving harsh winters, and setting up camp in hopes of one day building a home they could call their own. I envision their wagons, weighed down with everything they own, wheels tumbling and cracking over the dusty, rocky route. I suspect they, too, were struck by the magnitude of the mountains beyond.
It’s easy to lose oneself in the endless earth and imposing skyline here, but from these well-traveled highways, many generations later, I find myself pausing instead at the humble, earth-tone homes staggered across the sprawling landscape.
Built into the valleys beneath snowcapped crowns, these abodes represent real lives and sacred souls. They are the portrait of more than a century of courageous journeys, fractured relationships with indigenous tribes, and an intentional decision to cease their sojourning and forge a foundation within these weathered lowlands. High above them stand immovable, beautiful beasts, and yet their lives - where they work, play, eat, sleep, and dream - are almost all lived in the valley.
On the day we try to brave the snowy trails in the national park, altitude sickness gets the best of our littlest one and we quickly have to retreat. Though we’re disappointed, we sear the mountaintop view in our brains and return to safety. We weren’t made for the summit, it seems. Heck, we could barely make it past the trailhead. And as we spiral back down the mountain, I see the parallel:
Most of our lives are lived in the valleys, too.
***
From the double-decker outlook of our large mountain cabin, I breathe in the alpine air and feel every tightly wound fiber of my body begin to ease. Giant snowflakes pour from the sky, gently landing on the wooden planks beneath my feet. Within just an hour, the sky has shifted from the clearest blue blazing with sun to a complete whiteout, obscuring the once panoramic view on the horizon.
I don’t mind the storm rolling in; it’s haltingly beautiful, familiar even. I feel as though I’ve been here before. This particular place is new, but the mountaintop experience isn’t.
When I gave my life to Jesus.
When I married my husband.
When I welcomed four, beautiful children into the world.
When I built a business that supported my family.
Each of these moments mark a pivotal event in my life. They are one of many that have moved me and made me. They are journeys that brought me to high peaks where I stood proud of the hard-fought path I took to get there and in awe of the view I found from the top.
I remember the freedom I felt when my faith caught fire.
I see the unwavering smile on the face of that young, lovestruck girl walking down the long aisle to a new forever.
I sense the tears welling up in the eyes of a new mother, seeing her child for the first time.
I feel great pride when I acknowledge the courage and perseverance it took to build something that sustained body and spirit in our home.
But the older I get and the more mountaintops I climb, I find each peak is really more like a precipice. A sacred space to sear the view from this high point into my brain and then repel back down the mountainside into what comes next.
Faith doesn’t always feel like a blazing bonfire.
Marriage isn’t always as romantic as the wedding day.
Motherhood doesn’t always feel like a miracle.
Dreams don’t always come true.
Years of my life have been spent chasing a breathless, mountaintop experience like the ones I’ve had before. Where I feel the thrill of a journey’s beginning: as a Christian, as a wife, as a mother, as a dreamer.
The view is surely more spectacular from the top, I’ve told myself. Keep climbing. You’ll reach that pinnacle once again.
But it never seems to be the same. And maybe that’s the point. Perhaps the mountaintop experiences are simply a compass pointing us to the Divine and giving us strength to make the journey back down to the valley below. Perhaps we were never meant to live there. Because inevitably, the storm clouds will roll in once more and we’ll find that the summit isn’t sustainable.
It’s beautiful and inspiring, but it’s not real life.
Real life - the one where you and I work and play and eat and sleep and dream - is lived on the ground with hands and feet to dirt and trees. Where little joys break through cracked clay and lean toward the light. Beauty forever before us, and yet reality ever within us.
And I wonder, what would happen if we stopped trying to dwell on the peak, but instead dug deep into the red earth and learned to live right where we are.
Here, in the valley.
Would we appreciate the trek to the top more richly? Would we understand the magnitude of the grace we’ve been given to grow in the ground we’re in now?
We climb the mountains and come back down to recount the view to the ones we love. We survey the landscape beneath us and fill our lungs with unpolluted air to remind ourselves of our place in the world and of the way things should be. We give thanks for the courage to make the journey and the lessons learned along the way while still sowing a harvest from these low places we call our homes.
The lyrics to a song of my youth, “Valleys Fill First,” by Caedmon’s Call, say,
“Down in this wasteland
I miss the mountaintop view
But it's here in this valley
That I'm surrounded by You”
It continues with the chorus and ends with the line, “Valleys fill first.”
Those words have rattled around in my head for two decades, as if God knew I would need a melodic reminder that He fills the lowest places first. In even the most mundane moments, there is fertile ground being tilled within my soul. There are streams of restoration spilling down and overflowing the once barren places. There is life springing forth and hope blooming even from the base camp.
So, I pitch my tent here, surrounded by the beauty of the mountaintop experience, but believing my flourishing is found not in my ability to ascend once more, but in my willingness to anchor to the sturdy soil of the valley, where rivers run freely and abundance comes in abiding.