Mountain Moving.

The scope, magnitude, and majesty of mountains have always made the hairs on my arms stand up.  And I guarantee that even if my arms were completely waxed, the presence of moutains would still have a way of sprouting new hairs and making them stand up too.  The same is true of oceans.  I think it has something to do with being near and sitting before something so much larger than me.  I am but a mere ounce of plankton to the sea and a small piece of rock to the mountain (or maybe even just a pine needle if we are talking about the mountains in the Pacific Northwest).  Yet, despite how insignificant or small I feel to both of these things, they seem to be the place I run to when everything around me seems to get too big.  Maybe it's just my way of saying to the things around me getting seemingly larger, "There are still things physically larger than you."

I remember when I first moved to California, finding myself at the beach at 4AM, through tears, asking myself over and over again, "What am I doing?"  At that time, I had never felt so lost, had left my family, and everything that I had considered and deemed as stability in my life.  A wrestling match with God began and I was insistently not going to relent.  I demanded that God speak to me.  Demanded that he make just one dolphin jump in the crest of the waves.  After about two hours, a question surfaced in the forefront of my mind, "Would you still trust me even if I didn't say anything else to you, nor make a dolphin jump in the crest of the waves?"

It was one of those times where you can't figure out if that was your voice thinking of that question or if your conscience was just kicking in, or if you were starting to go delirious from the energy and exhaustion being consumed by your tears, or, or, or, or if that was really the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  Well, yes it's highly likely that I was delirious, but I can most confidently say that I would never ask myself that question especially in such a emotionally infused mindset.  And so the question just continued to repeat itself in my head.  It took every ounce and fabrication of my being to blurt out, "Yes!" 

It was another hour before I regained composure and as I confidently stood with a peaceful heart, I noticed about 7 dolphins riding the crests of the waves.  "You have got to be freaking kidding me!"  (I'm pretty sure that my voice was equivalent to that of a rooster wake - up call on a farm, but instead to all of Redondo Beach).  And I heard that same voice whisper, "Abundance."  So you can pretty much guess that despite thinking I was all out of tears at that point, the evaporation of the ocean had somehow found its way into my eyes, allowing me to create rivers all over again. 

I remember thinking, "My God knows me.  He sees me." 

Fast forward to this past November, when some life news sent me and a best friend (who had already been in town visiting - even more evidence that God was so ahead of me in planning) fleeing to the mountains.  I remember standing there in the midst of so much confusion thinking, "My God can move these suckers if He wants to!  And not just these suckers, but everything in my life that is trying to masquerade itself as an immovable mountain." 

This week, I've been reminded on more than one occasion (in addition to trying to remind myself), that though I stand before, and at the bottom of an entire range of mountains right now, my smallness keeps Him big.  My need for Him keeps Him as the Provider.

And I was perusing through the photos from that weekend at the bottom of the mountains, despite feeling as though we were being smashed and broken under the mountains, joy was still in abundance.  So it's just got to be possible, that the same can be true today, of this week, and every other week throughout the rest of my life when the very mountains that I flee to are the same mountains that crowd my life.