Your Hand in Mine

Hi Joe:

I know you know I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro -- you were there. I felt you, I felt God, and life has started to become whole again. I’m telling you things you already know, but I wanted to share anyway before I forgot.

Since you died, I’ve kept God at arm’s length, not really knowing why. I guess I was just too sad, too broken and too confused, and a half-hearted effort at letting Him be Him was all I could manage. But He pulled me closer in spite of myself, because He loves me, and He doesn’t let His kids stay distant forever.

“He will cover you with His feathers. He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” -- Psalm 91:4 (NLT)

I want you to know my heart has begun to heal. You can see that, can't you? After you died, I kept asking God to give me a sign of you, of Himself -- something I could hold onto and tuck inside my heart, a good luck charm I could pull out and hold in my hand whenever the going got rough. I kept waiting, waiting, waiting and nothing. You and He have always been here, but far away like the horizon, and my prayers felt like they were being returned to sender.

BUT THEN KILIMANJARO.

God, in His mercy, led me to you and to Himself. All I had to do was go to Africa to find what I didn’t know I was looking for!

One foot in front of the other,
[1,2,3,4…inhale…1,2,3,4…exhale…1,2,3,4…inhale…1,2,3,4…exhale]
upwards I went.

“I look up toward the mountains.
    Where can I find help?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the maker of Heaven and earth.
He will not let you fall.
    Your Guardian will not fall asleep.” -- Psalm 121:1-3 (GW)

As the air thinned and my mind slowed, I began to understand. In the fullness of nothingness, things started to make sense. I felt your hand in mine. We weren’t touching, but your hand holding mine was palpable. Your hand and His Hand were one, reaching out to me, and I held on as you walked with me through my sorrow, as you pulled me up that mountain. I can’t fully process what happened yet, but I can say with certainty that He answers prayers in His own time and in His own way. And His answers are way cooler than any scenario I could have ever imagined. The crevasse that’s torn my heart apart is still there, will always be there, but something else is taking root and blooming, something equally as pure and beautiful as us. I realize the life I have now is not a consolation prize. Life’s good, choose joy, pao (cool).

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” -- Ephesians 3:20

I miss you. I miss us. I long for you to take care of me, to carry me. But God allowed me to see bits and pieces of you and of Himself through the team he chose for this trip. We’re all carrying some sort of burden -- life’s hard, we're human after all. But together, we lightened each other’s load. The profound simplicity of finding what was lost through the complexity and difficulty of what we accomplished together takes my breath away. I suspect we all discovered something that will change our lives forever. Mel, A.J., Gretchen, Alex, Rob (the 8^th wonder of the world), Evans, Amos, Daniel, Amos, Gadleson and our Tanzanian Team -- you guys will always have real estate in my heart. SEND IT!

“Help carry each other's burdens. In this way, you will follow Christ's teachings.” -- Galations 6:2 (GW)

On a lighter note, I realized I don’t really need a hairdryer. Wavy hair in all the wrong places can be covered up quite nicely with a baseball cap. And wearing tights in public is not necessarily a bad thing. No one cares about the ever-present muffin top but me. And I ate as much as I wanted and still lost weight -- we’ve always believed in miracles, right? But you always loved me just the way I am. Oh yeah -- and tinkling outside is liberating, especially when you’ve had 4 liters of water in one day. But you knew that too. It’s a guy thing.

You always wanted me to dance more. “I can’t dance,” I’d say. “I don’t like it.” You laughed with me as I did my own kind of joy-inspired pseudo-dance with our Tanzanian team as they sang the Kilimanjaro song. I learned to trust the intuition of a friend -- it’s changed my life. I found that my past, with all of its ups and downs, successes, failures and losses, can help my fellow team members find their own way. Pao (Cool).

I learned that really cool things happen when I force myself to unzip my sleeping bag and crawl out of my tent. I saw you smiling with me -- then, now and always.

I learned that as awesome as the summit is, I can’t stay there. My body can’t bear it. It’s too high, too much -- it's not home yet. And even though the descent was excruciating on knees weakened by 6 surgeries, I knew I had to go down, wanted to go down. God still has stuff for me to do. Plus, there was beer at the finish line. But I’ll never forget that view and the stillness I found in the windy, frozen air. Chilled to the bone, the flame in my heart grew hotter and brighter. I guess you knew that would happen too.

“Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” -- Matthew 6:10 (ESV)

I’m still sad about what happened to you, to me, to us. I don’t know why cancer was allowed to separate us. God didn’t choose to answer our prayers the way we wanted. But my spirit knows that His Plan overrides what we wanted and carries His divine purpose. And ultimately, Jesus is my Comforter, Protector, Healer, Friend, My All in All. I just have to let Him be Who He says He is and receive what He has to offer.

What I feared most happened; now I’m no longer afraid. And I know that putting one foot in front of the other allowed me to find you and God. Hand-in-hand, I can do this thing called life and make you and our Father proud. And when the summit calls me home for good, we’ll pick up where we left off.

Asante sana (thank you very much)
Nikupenda (I love you)
Angalia hivi karibuni (I’ll see you soon)

Photo credit Gretchen Powers and American300 Tours: Purple Heart Summits Kilimanjaro Team 2018