Ever since I heard this song by Tauren Wells, I’ve listened to it many times. But I don’t think I really got it until I moved to Tennessee.
We talk about the times in life when we’re in the valleys – when things are tough, when we think we’ll never make it back to the top of the mountain. You know, those places where it feels like we’re on top of the world and everything is going our way.
What we tend to forget is how much work it takes to make it up the mountain, and how beautiful the valleys can be.
I don’t know if you’ve ever climbed a mountain before – even a marked out trail – but it’s no easy task. It’s steep and rocky and sometimes a little muddy. It’s hot and humid and you’re dripping in sweat. You pause often to take a drink or catch your breath. Sometimes you lose the path and have to go stomping through the brush to find your way again. And just as you think it’s not worth it to keep going, just as you want to quit, you get there:
You see it. That it’s all been worth it.
It’s the same in life. God brings us to the top of the mountain, but it’s not easy. It’s a hard climb. A difficult journey. But it’s worth it when we get there because it is breathtakingly beautiful.
As much as I love those times on the mountains, I’m learning to love the climb, and even the valleys too.
Because the valleys have their own beauty, their own majesty. The valleys are the places where we see things like this, that you’d never be able to see from the top of the mountain:
Even though the valleys may be hard, and we may not understand why things are the way they are – a difficult diagnosis, an unexpected loss, a troubled marriage – there is still beauty, purpose. God is still there. With us.
I’ve always loved the view from the top of the mountain, but I’m learning to love the valleys, too. There are still tears, still hurt, still fears. Still unknowns and unanswered questions. Still difficult circumstances. But I’m seeing things in the valleys that I can’t see from the mountaintop.
And it’s beautiful.