What if? 

/ Jami Stroud

Standing at the peak of the mountain, she could see everything.

Most people think that the mountain top is the goal, the end of the journey. But once she reached it, she realized that after much effort and struggle to reach the mountain top, she felt tired. And it wasn’t the end of the journey. 

She still had to climb down.

Perhaps going down would be easier than getting to the peak, but she didn’t know which way to go. 

From her vantage point, she could see every option, but she couldn’t see all of it. Once she chose a path back down, she would have to face whatever she came across. 

What if she makes the wrong choice?  

What if she doesn’t like the path she chose? 

What if she chooses one and never gets to experience the other? 

What if she starts down one way and everything is smooth, but she never finds the joy of reward from her struggles and hard work? 

What if it’s the wrong way and she doesn’t make it back home? 

What if?

So instead of moving she stood frozen and still unable to comprehend what to do next. 

“You really should just go.”, she said to herself. But she couldn’t bring herself to take a leap or even a step. 

She was frozen by the poor decisions she made on the way up to the peak, and by the situations she met along the way that were out of her control. 

So she stood. And waited. For what, she did not know. But she knew it would come, in time. And then the mountain top wouldn’t seem so cold, scary, and lonely. But instead, a distant place where she had once found herself in the midst of transformation. 

2 thoughts on “What if? ”

  1. Yes. Thank you for sharing. Have you read Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard? This reminds me of the image at the end of the book. Here are a couple quotations I could find quick online…

    “The High Places,” answered the Shepherd, “are the starting places for the journey down to the lowest place in the world. When you have hinds’ feet and can go ‘leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills,’ you will be able, as I am, to run down from the heights in the gladdest self-giving and then go up to the mountains again. You will be able to mount to the High Places swifter than eagles, for it is only up on the High Places of Love that anyone can receive the power to pour themselves down in an utter abandonment of self-giving.”

    Go lower. Find the lowest place. That is the only way to true fulfillment…’Perfect love casteth out fear.’ Yes, that is what the water utters so exultingly as it rushes toward the great, terrifying rocky lip of the gorge and plunges over, utterly abandoned and unafraid of the dreadful depths into which it must fall, down onto the threatening rocks below. The downward motion is light, adventurous, and perfectly happy. The water, after casting itself over the rocks, seems to be held up and supported as though floating on wings! A glorious contradiction indeed.

    Peace be with you, my friend … and not as the world gives.

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