We can only climb the mountains because there’s a valley that makes the mountain a mountain.

Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life.

The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we’re holding on to that which we’re climbing, or we’re letting God hold onto us.

If the road behind me is not growing ever longer, then it is likely that the feet underneath me are not moving any longer. And if my feet are not moving, I have somehow, somewhere traded this most glorious journey for lesser endeavors.

To grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water’s edge and clumsily grab whatever happens to float by me. Rather, it is to deliberately step into waters both calm and turbulent in order to wrestle great things to shore.

God has hewn out a hidden path more glorious, tantalizing and adventuresome than the path trod by most, and it is a path seen only through the eyes of our wounds, felt solely through the heart of our losses, and singularly traversed by those with a limp in their step.