Twelve stair steps were easy to climb, but during that episode of my life they soared above me like an impossible feat. An attempt to climb even one single step exhausted me to the point of collapse. It was the illness, the severely exacerbated asthma that robbed me of my life as I used to know and enjoy it. Because I trusted in the God of miracles I had refused to enter the plastic bubble that was prescribed for me in order to prolong my life. “One day,” I said to my doctor, “I will climb a mountain.” He considered the fact that I couldn’t even climb a single stair step but he accepted my decision.
In the months and years that followed that declaration of faith, I was blessed to be gifted by the measured return of all the things I had grown allergic to. I hugged a pine tree and wept as I took pleasure in its fragrance, burying my face within its still-tied-up branches while it stood in the narthex of our church at the start of the Christmas season. The following spring, I stood under a pale blue sky in the center of a large enclosed garden of roses and breathed in their sweet perfume while praising my Heavenly Father for His grace, His goodness, and His mercy. During the summer I traveled to the Pacific Ocean and sat on a sandy slope, delighting in the sights and smells of the sea and listening to the song of sea gulls soaring overhead. Fall brought winds that hurried multicolored leaves along the way as they danced in the breeze, bounced across lawns, and twirled down every walkway and street. As I walked along a path in a local park, a large flock of sparrows flew to the sky from behind me, soaring over me and ahead of me on both sides. The child's heart in me giggled with delight to be graced with the privilege of being a participant in this magnificent and glorious panorama of birds in flight. The world was new, fresh, exciting, and exhilarating! I’d been given the opportunity of rediscovering all the thing I'd been told were lost to me forever. Tears of joy fell each time God returned a gift once-lost. As I think on these things I’m reminded of a verse from Francis Thompson’s The Hound the of Heaven which says, “All which I took from thee, I did but take, not for thy harms, but just that thou might'st seek it in My arms...”
The illness and my weakness gave God the opportunity to demonstrate His power. He used all the things I had become allergic to as teaching tools to help me grow; and then He gave them back to me again one by one. My health had been restored. Now came the test of the mountain.
The year was 1999. I’d been selected as one of three artists from the US to travel to Bethlehem Palestine to paint the Millennium Mural for the year 2000. A gifted local artist joined our team when we arrived in Bethlehem. The photograph in this entry shows the four artists with selections of the mural that was painted on the BBC campus (click on the photo to enlarge it). Looking back, I find it absolutely illogical that I’d gone before the Lord three times, reminding him of the asthma. For several long years I had not traveled anywhere without the watchful accompaniment of a family member. Traveling alone was still an area that had not been tested. Each time I went before the Lord in prayer about traveling to a foreign land with a group of strangers who knew nothing of what had gone before in my struggle with asthma, His answer was always the same: “Trust Me.” I chose to trust, and in that splendid moment the burden of uncertainty suddenly released itself so powerfully that I felt like I was floating. In complete surrender to His will, my soul fastened tightly to The Shepherd’s leading as I traveled to Bethlehem Palestine to paint a mural inspired by Psalm 23 on a concrete wall that measured 102 feet in length by 22 feet high. We finished the mural in three and a half weeks and then went on tour of the Holy Land.
The mountain towered before me like a menacing monster and its path was dusty, rocky, and void of vegetation of any kind. It was August, the hottest time of the year, and there was nothing to provide shade or shelter during the climb. Years earlier I predicted that I would climb a mountain, and now the mountain presented itself as a testing of the authenticity of my faith. We were in ancient Jericho in the Judean Dessert. The mountain was several feet high – perhaps the length of a football field – maybe less. It was a simple hill, a mound of earth easily scaled, but to me it was a massive mound of dread, an impossible attainment, and a terror filled journey of gasping for every breath. My team mates were already ahead of me by a couple of yards but my feet felt like they had bonded with the rocky soil at the base of the hill. As I looked up the dusty path I heard my Lord’s voice in my heart reminding me of His instruction to trust Him. I thought about the hill he climbed for me two thousand years ago. He brought me to his birthplace to paint a mural in honor of his faithfulness, and he was ready to climb another hill with me. Apprehension released its powerful grip and I took that first step. During the ascent, as I placed one tiny baby step in front of another, not a single breath was labored and I reached the summit of that dusty mound refreshed and energized and with triumphant rejoicing for all that God had brought me through.
Turning around to see the path I had climbed, I saw that the foot of the mountain from the top of the hill was not so vast a distance after all. Below the hill, at the place where I hesitated in trembling and fear, grew a beautiful little plant with glossy leaves and tiny white blossoms. While looking at the mountain, I'd missed seeing it there. Discovering it's existence reminded me that in every circumstance of our lives, God leaves His incredible fingerprints of love. Too often, while focusing on the problem, we miss seeing the hope, the possible, and the glory that comes with victory. I saw an impossible dusty mountain in the dessert. God saw the possible and proved it.
“Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.” Psalm 40:5
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