It's 5 am. I have now been up for an hour, trying to fall asleep, but it is hopeless. Those planes which took me halfway around the world have also taken away a normal sleeping pattern. So here I sit, in my bed, wishing to be asleep, but with a mind racing too fast.
I went into this program with the wrong attitude, but after about 2 hours, that attitude didn't seem to matter. Any preconceived notions of what Upward Bound had in store for me were thrown out the window the moment I stepped through the doors of the main building with the large letters of TAURENHOF painted on the outside. I entered my bedroom, shared with six other girls, and looked out the window. Right outside my window were the Dachstein mountains, boasting gloriously over the quiet and rainy streets of Schladming. These were the mountains I had come to climb? No, not really. I didn't come to climb physical mountains...I came to climb away from home, just for a moment. How strange that life can make me so tired that my only solution is to run away. "Austria will be the perfect escape," I thought to myself. Wrong. Austria would be the place where I would face and conquer the challenges that drove me there. "The mountaineering will push me out of my comfort zone," I said. Wrong again. These mountains would stretch me and push me so much that I would stop in my tracks 300 meters from the destination begging for water, feeling unable to continue.
Why oh why oh why did I ever think that this was going to be easy?
There was no way of knowing, really, how simple or hard this journey would be. We can try to plan things ahead of time, but in the end, you can never know until you're there. I learned quite quickly upon my arrival that you don't need to know. One of the biggest ideas of Upward Bound is that if you don't have to plan ahead, don't do it. This meant that for five weeks, we would not know where we were going, what we were doing, how long we would be away, what time it was or how far we would be hiking. For many, this was a huge challenge, but for me it was the biggest blessing I could have asked for. After a strictly scheduled year of school, not having to think about anything was heavenly. So now, when people ask me questions like "How far did you hike on any given day?" I can't provide an answer. I have no idea how far we hiked, but the distance was not the point of the hike. Ask me questions like, "Where did you see God on this hike?" or "What was the most beautiful thing you saw on that hike?" Those are the questions I can answer because those are the things I experienced.
On our last day, we met with our leaders one by one to discuss our time at Upward Bound. They asked us questions about our original goals and fears that we thought of on the first day. They asked us how we grew. They asked us what we learned. They were big questions and we could have discussed them for days. Let me tell you about them as well.
My three original goals:
1. To love the mountains. It's true. I'm a Dahlstrom who, until quite recently, didn't love the mountains. How this happened, I'm not sure, but by some freak accident, I never found the rest and beauty in the mountains that the rest of my family seemed to grasp so easily. Coming to Upward Bound, I wanted to find that and I did. Very quickly. Maybe it was the special Alpine feeling or the goats that wandered the mountains, but something that should have happened 20 years ago finally happened and I can say honestly now, I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS!
2. Live for today. This goal was difficult at the time, when I found out we would know nothing about the program until we were actually doing it. After about one day, though, I realized how perfect it is not to have to plan anything. Living "in the now" was a beautiful thing and getting back to reality will be very difficult.
3. Grow in Christ. Yes, I did this too. It would have been impossible for me to be in those mountains and not see Christ. It would have been impossible for me to be surrounded by 35 wonderful students and not see Christ's love. He was everywhere and I began to grasp that much more.
My three original fears:
1. Caving! A conversation in the cave:
Victoria: "Isn't this awesome?"
Holly: "No, I'm really freaked out right now."
Victoria: "Why? We're in a cave!"
Holly: "That's why!"
Victoria: "What's freaking you out?"
Holly: "You know, the crawling through small spaces, the fact that if I take a wrong step, I could fall an indeterminable number of meters into oblivion and die or the fact that I am unable to see the light of day."
Victoria: "Oh. Good reasons, I suppose."
The fear never entirely went away, but I still spent the night in that cave and seeing the light afterward is a feeling I will never forget.
2. Using this time only as an escape. I was afraid that I would use this time as nothing more than running away from my problems. Quite quickly, the program wasn't even used for that reason. Upward Bound was not a place to run away, but a time to refresh and a place to grow.
3. Going too fast. I wasn't talking about the hiking, just the five weeks as a whole. I didn't want to take any second for granted, but treasure the time I had there. When the five weeks were up, I could hardly believe it. I think it would have been impossible not to let the weeks fly by, though. They were too jam packed with beauty and joy to avoid the inevitable fact that they would finish so soon after they began.
The biggest question of all: What has stood out to me the most?
I think, of all the lectures and all the hiking and all the reflection time, what has stood out to me the most is that fact that this world is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I remember the first night of our first tour, I sat on a rock on a ledge and stared for a long time at the mountains beyond. I could see nothing but mountains every direction I turned and they seemed to go on forever. It was at that moment I was filled with awe by the fact that I get to be a part of it. I get to be a part of this beautiful world and that is a privilege that I shouldn't take for granted.
I swear there's magic in those mountains. Magic that makes cold pasta taste good. Magic that takes away fears. Magic that brings everyone together. Magic that makes the troubles of yesterday disappear. So go. Go to the mountains. Find the Lord in them and bask in the glory of creation.
"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him." -Psalm 34:8
1 comment:
great post Holly... so grateful that the mountains are now in your blood. So proud of you - not for the hiking (though you're awesome!), but for the growth in Christ, and your openness to His leading!
Post a Comment