When we lived in Ecuador
the boys and I decided to climb Pichincha, the volcano that rises above Quito. It's not a
technical climb, one of the easier ones in the country, but at 15,000 ft it's
higher than any point in the continental U.S.
I don't really know anything about mountain climbing, but what I leaned from that trip was, what looks like a gently sloping grassy hillside from a distance, can really be a steep, rutty, thorny journey when you get up close.
I think the same can be true in life. When we start looking at other people's journeys we can start to make comparisons. From a distance the lives of the people always looks pretty smooth. You can start to wonder why they don't have any challenges.
Maybe our climb is going great and we look down at them and wonder why they're going so slowly and falling so often. From a distance, everyone's mountains look simple.
It is only when we journey together that we are able to truly understand. Only then can we see their backpacks weighted down with a history of baggage. Only then can we understand the complications of their trail.
Generally, if we’re humble enough to walk together and hear someone’s journey our condemnation turns to consolation. A few minutes on someone else’s mountain and we become thankful for our own.
Life is a wonderful dangerous beautiful broken mountain trail. It will be a lot safer, and a lot more fun, if we walk it together.
I don't really know anything about mountain climbing, but what I leaned from that trip was, what looks like a gently sloping grassy hillside from a distance, can really be a steep, rutty, thorny journey when you get up close.
I think the same can be true in life. When we start looking at other people's journeys we can start to make comparisons. From a distance the lives of the people always looks pretty smooth. You can start to wonder why they don't have any challenges.
Maybe our climb is going great and we look down at them and wonder why they're going so slowly and falling so often. From a distance, everyone's mountains look simple.
It is only when we journey together that we are able to truly understand. Only then can we see their backpacks weighted down with a history of baggage. Only then can we understand the complications of their trail.
Generally, if we’re humble enough to walk together and hear someone’s journey our condemnation turns to consolation. A few minutes on someone else’s mountain and we become thankful for our own.
Life is a wonderful dangerous beautiful broken mountain trail. It will be a lot safer, and a lot more fun, if we walk it together.
No comments:
Post a Comment