A Mountain to Climb

Sometimes, we create something with our hands and don't realize just how much of our heart we have put into it until God begins to show us what we have made.

I recently participated in a class where I created a piece of scar jewelry. It is a necklace made from metal, textured with the impressions of my own scars. It has a mountain, a blue gem, three peaks, and a little heart hanging beneath it.

Every part has meaning. Every detail tells a piece of my story.

But I didn't realize just how much this necklace would come to mean to me until I got it back.

You see, when I left the day I made it, my heart was broken.

Not my emotional heart. Not in the way you might think. The little metal heart on my necklace was broken.

And somehow, that became one of the most beautiful parts of this story.

The Mountain I Was Still Climbing

To understand this necklace, you have to understand where I was when I made it.

The class was on August 29. Just 12 days earlier, on August 17, I had been discharged from the very hospital where the class was held. I had spent 19 days in the hospital undergoing two major surgeries, including grafts on numerous locations of the body. I had been through pain, exhaustion, and more healing than I could have imagined. It was a brutal few weeks. I was home, but I was nowhere near finished recovering.

I was still climbing the mountain.

As I drove to the event, I was in pain and exhausted. I also knew I had another event that evening. One I love dearly as it was a dance my friend hosts and I help with often. I was preparing for a long day ahead. So I did what I often do: I turned on my music and tried to drown out the noise in my own head.

And song after song seemed to speak directly to the words I had chosen for the back of my necklace, which hadn't been chosen yet.

Through the mountains and the valleys, Christ is greater.

It wasn't just a pretty phrase. It was the truth I was trying to hold on to.

Because the mountain doesn't disappear when we declare that Christ is greater. The valley doesn't suddenly become painless. Faith doesn't mean we never grow weary, never struggle, or never wonder how we are going to make it through another day.

It means the mountain is not greater than our God. I have spent nearly 23 years learning that truth.

At four years old, I survived a fire that left burns and scars across nearly half my body. I was given less than a five percent chance of survival. Since then, I have endured more than 90 surgeries, countless procedures, and years of learning how to live in a body that has been permanently changed. Learning what my new normal was every time I woke up from the operation. Relearning to love myself each time. Battling PTSD and Depression as I wrapped my head around the suffering I faced so often. It hasn't been a walk in the park, its been a climb for sure.

I know what it means to fight for healing. I know what it means to celebrate progress only to discover that something you thought was healed can still hurt. I know what it means to be grateful to be alive and still struggle with the cost of surviving.

And I know what it means to be somewhere between the valley and the mountaintop, unsure of how much farther the climb will go.

When I made this necklace, I wasn't looking back on a difficult season that had already ended. I was living in it. I was tired. I was hurting. I was still trying to figure out what recovery would look like.

I didn't know what the next several months would hold.

But I had already seen God provide.

Even in the hardest three weeks of that hospital stay, people showed up. And they have continued to show up. People send cards that I treasure deeply. People bring meals. People ask how I am doing. They continue to provide in ways I never could have arranged for myself.

They keep showing up in the middle of a story that is still unfolding.

Sometimes we expect God's faithfulness to look like the end of the struggle. We want the healing, the answer, the provision, the moment when we can finally say, "I made it. It's over."

But what if His faithfulness is also found in the people who walk beside us before we get there?

What if the evidence that God has not abandoned us is not that we are suddenly standing on top of the mountain, but that we look beside us and realize we are not climbing alone?

Galatians 6:2 tells us to carry one another's burdens. Not to pretend we have none. Not to wait until we can carry them ourselves. To carry them together.

I am learning that accepting help does not diminish my testimony. It is becoming part of it.

Sometimes God's provision looks like a miracle. Sometimes it looks like a surgeon, a nurse, a friend, a meal delivered to your door, a card in the mail, or someone who remembers to ask how you are really doing.

Sometimes the mountain is still there, but He sends people to help us climb it.

And that, too, is faithfulness.

The Lake on the Mountain

Look closely at the blue gem.

It isn't just a pop of color against the rough metal. It is a lake.

A place of stillness. An oasis. A reminder that even on a mountain, there can be water.

Psalm 23:2–3 describes the Shepherd who leads us beside still waters and restores our souls. I love that the same psalm also acknowledges the darkest valley. The peaceful waters and the dark valley belong to the same journey, with the same Shepherd.

Sometimes I need that reminder.

Because I am not particularly good at resting. I want to keep going. I want to do more, give more, accomplish more, and prove that I am okay. I can convince myself that if I just push a little harder, I can get through whatever is in front of me.

But a mountain is not a lake.

There is a time to climb, and there is a time to stop and drink.

There is a time to fight for healing, and there is a time to let yourself be cared for.

There is a time to keep moving forward, and there is a time to lie down beside the still waters and let the Lord restore what exhaustion has taken from you.

The lake is also a reminder of provision.

Water doesn't seem to belong on the top of a mountain. And yet Scripture gives us the remarkable image of God bringing water from a rock. In Exodus 17, when the Israelites were thirsty in the wilderness and could not see how their need would be met, God provided water where they could not produce it themselves.

That story speaks to me deeply because provision has been one of my prayers, both during this season and now.

How will I manage? How will the needs be met? How will I keep moving forward when I cannot see where everything is coming from?

I don't always know.

But I have seen God provide before.

Sometimes the water comes from a place I never would have thought to look. Sometimes it comes through another person. Sometimes it arrives as an unexpected gift, a meal, a card, or the reminder that I am not forgotten.

And then there is something else about this gem that I love: the light shines through it from the back, too.

Perhaps that is part of what God does in us. His light is not only something we display when everything looks beautiful from the outside. It can shine through the places where we have been marked, through the rough edges, through the things that have been mended, and through the places where we are still healing.

The light doesn't require the scars to disappear.

It shines through them.

Three Peaks, One God

When I first created the mountain, I didn't know I wanted three peaks to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It happened that I had extra clay so an extra peak happened.

Three distinct peaks, yet one mountain.

And then I noticed something else.

There are three pieces of metal that look like boulders. Two sit close together, while one is set apart.

I began to see the separated one as a reminder of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised to send as our Helper and Advocate. John 14:26 speaks of the Spirit teaching us and reminding us of what Jesus said.

I picture the Spirit guiding the traveler along the mountain, reminding us of the truth when we forget it, helping us when we do not know what to pray, and drawing us back to the One who is greater than the path ahead.

And I picture the other two pieces as places of refuge along the way.

Not because the mountain is without danger, but because the traveler is not without shelter.

I love discovering these little layers of meaning after the fact. Sometimes we create something with one intention and later discover that it holds more than we initially understood.

Maybe that is part of the beauty of reflecting on our stories, too. We don't always recognize what God is doing while we are in the middle of it. Sometimes we look back and begin to notice the little pieces that were there all along.

We see where we were protected. Where we were guided. Where we were given rest. Where we were carried.

Sometimes we discover that a part of the story we thought was simply decorative was actually pointing us toward something deeper.

The Scars That Saved My Life

There is another detail about this necklace that makes it especially personal.

The texture across the metal came from my own scars.

Not an imitation of scars. Not a pattern chosen because it looked interesting.

My scars.

Specifically, I used the texture from my side, where I underwent a surgery called an escharotomy after my burn injury. The burns around my chest had restricted the movement of my chest wall, making it difficult for me to breathe. The surgery released that tightness and helped save my life.

It was one of my earliest procedures.

And now, more than two decades later, that same area remains one of the tightest places on my body.

Think about that for a moment.

The place where a surgeon helped give me the ability to breathe is also a place where I continue to experience tightness and limitations. Something that helped save my life can still be a source of difficulty in my daily life.

Both things are true.

The surgery was necessary. It helped save me. And the effects of the injury and scarring still affect me today.

I think we sometimes want our stories to be simpler than they are. We want to divide everything into the things that hurt us and the things that healed us, as though those categories will always remain separate.

But life is rarely that tidy.

Sometimes the very place where healing began is also a place that still needs care. Sometimes a breakthrough is real, and the struggle that follows is real, too. Sometimes we are deeply grateful for how far we have come while still acknowledging how much something hurts.

Healing does not erase history.

And surviving something does not mean we will never have to deal with its consequences again.

There are days when I wish my body did not require so much from me. Days when I wish I could simply move without calculating the pain, the limitations, or the cost.

And there are days when I look at my scars and see something I never could have seen when I was a little girl.

Not because the scars are painless. Not because I am grateful for the fire or would ever wish the experience on someone else. Not because every part of my journey has somehow become beautiful.

But because these scars are part of a life that was preserved.

They tell the story of a little girl who survived when the odds were against her. Of doctors who fought for her. Of a God who met her in a place she could never have understood. Of a life that continued, even when it looked different from what anyone expected.

And now, those same scars have become the texture of something I made with my own hands.

I took an imprint of a place that has caused me pain and made it part of a piece of art.

I didn't hide the texture. I didn't smooth it away until it became unrecognizable. I let the marks remain.

Because the texture is the story.

I don't have to pretend the difficult parts never happened to recognize the beauty that exists alongside them. I don't have to call every painful thing good to acknowledge that God has brought good out of places I never would have chosen.

My scars do not make the fire good.

They remind me that the fire did not get the final word.

I Didn't Want Perfect

I didn't want the mountain to be cut perfectly.

I freehanded it.

I wanted it to look real.

Because recovery isn't always beautiful and perfect. It can be hard. It can be rigid. It can be a battle. Sometimes the edges are rough, the lines are uneven, and the middle doesn't look anything like what you imagined it would.

Sometimes you take two steps forward and one step back.

Sometimes you celebrate a wound healing, only to discover that another needs attention.

Sometimes you think you are finally getting your strength back, and then you have a day when getting through the basics feels like climbing the mountain all over again.

That is recovery, too.

I could have tried to make every edge smooth and every peak symmetrical. I could have created a mountain that looked like it belonged in a picture of a perfect life.

But that would not have been my mountain.

My mountain has been rough. It has had unexpected turns, painful climbs, some back slides and mudslides, and moments when I could not see what was waiting on the other side. It has included victories and setbacks, tears and laughter, exhaustion and unexpected joy.

And somehow, it is still beautiful.

Not because the rough edges aren't rough.

Not because the pain isn't painful.

But because the roughness does not cancel out the beauty.

I think we can be so quick to believe that if something is still difficult, it must mean something has gone wrong. If we are still struggling, we must not be healing fast enough. If we still need help, we must not be strong enough. If our story still has rough edges, perhaps we have not done enough to make it whole.

But what if the rough edges are simply part of the story?

What if we can be a work in progress without being a failed finished product?

What if we can acknowledge the places that still need healing without dismissing the healing that has already taken place?

Philippians 1:6 reminds us that the One who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion.

I find comfort in the fact that the work is still ongoing.

God is not finished with me.

And I do not have to pretend that I am finished, either.

The Heart That Was Mended

When I left the day I made my necklace, my heart was broken.

Again, not my emotional heart. The little metal heart on the necklace itself.

When I got it back, the amazing people who finished it for me had mended it. They had taken the broken pieces and put them back together. The heart was whole again, but it wasn't untouched. It still carried its texture. It still carried its scars. It was still the same heart, just mended.

At the time, I don't think I fully understood what that would come to mean to me.

But today, as I was worshiping, the Lord touched my heart and reminded me of something I desperately needed to hear.

See, you have a broken heart, but it gets mended. Not without scars. Not without needing Me and other people. But it gets mended. It is never too far gone.

The words settled into my soul as we sang a song with the line, "Who thought you'd find me at the lowest place?"

And I thought about how many times God has met me there.

At four years old, in the aftermath of a fire.

In hospital rooms, preparing for surgeries I never imagined I would need.

In rehabilitation, learning to move again.

In the valleys where pain and exhaustion made it difficult to see beyond the day in front of me.

In darkest caves when I wanted nothing more than to not be living because that seemed easier.

In the moments of everyday stress and suffering that doesnt slow down just because we are following the Lord.

And now, in the aftermath of another major series of surgeries, still learning how to recover, still learning how to receive help, still learning what it means to live in a body that has endured so much.

Who would have thought He would meet me there?

In the lowest places.

In the rough edges.

In the broken heart.

On the mountain I was still climbing.

Beside the lake where I needed rest.

In the scars I once might have wished away, now pressed into metal and made part of something beautiful.

He was there.

Not always in the ways I expected. Not always by making the pain disappear. Not always by giving me an explanation for why things happened the way they did.

But there, nonetheless.

And perhaps that is what I want to remember whenever I wear this necklace.

The mountain reminds me that Christ is greater than the valleys and the peaks.

The lake reminds me that He provides rest and water and provision even when I cannot see where they will come from.

The three peaks remind me of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, present and faithful.

The scar texture reminds me that my story is written into my body, but my body is not the whole of my story.

And the heart reminds me that broken does not mean beyond repair.

For so much of my life, I have known how to fight. I know how to endure pain. I know how to push through difficult days, to keep showing up, to find a reason to laugh, and to hold on to my faith when the circumstances around me are hard.

But accepting help is a different kind of courage.

Letting someone else see the broken pieces is a different kind of vulnerability.

Allowing another person to help put something back together means admitting that I cannot always do it alone.

And perhaps that is where the heart becomes more than a symbol of my own healing.

It becomes a reminder that God often works through the hands of other people.

The people who finished my necklace could have looked at a broken heart and decided it was ruined. Instead, they mended it.

They didn't make it unbreakable. They didn't erase the fact that it had broken. They simply helped put it back together.

And when I look at that little heart, I think about all the people who have done something similar in my life.

The people who have stayed.

The people who have prayed.

The people who have checked in when the excitement of the hospital updates faded and recovery became ordinary, exhausting life again.

The people who have brought meals, sent cards, offered encouragement, and reminded me that I am worth caring for even when I have nothing to give back.

The people who have helped me carry what I could not carry alone.

I cannot begin to explain how much that means to me.

And I am beginning to wonder whether one of the most important parts of healing is learning not only how to survive the breaking, but how to receive the mending.

Because we were never meant to be entirely self-sufficient. We were made for relationship with God and with one another.

There is no shame in being the person who needs the meal.

There is no shame in being the person who receives the card.

There is no shame in being the person who has to say, "I can't do this by myself right now."

Sometimes the testimony is not that we were strong enough to put every broken piece back together.

Sometimes the testimony is that God loved us enough to send people who helped.

Psalm 147:3 says that He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

I love that image. God doesn't turn away from the brokenhearted. He draws near to them. He tends to the wounds. He binds them up.

And sometimes, He does that through the hands of the people He places in our lives.

I Am Still Climbing

I don't know what the rest of my mountain will look like.

I don't know how many more times I will have to climb, how many more places will need healing, or what kinds of provision I will need along the way.

I don't know what the next chapter of recovery will bring.

But I know this:

I have not climbed alone.

I do not have to climb alone.

And I do not have to wait until I reach the top to recognize the faithfulness of the One who walks with me.

Maybe that is why I needed the heart to be broken before it was mended.

Maybe I needed the reminder that even the things we create with our own hands can require someone else's hands to help make them whole.

Maybe I needed to see that mending doesn't mean pretending the breaking never happened.

And maybe I needed to remember that I, too, can be mended.

Not into the person I was before the fire.

Not into a version of myself who never hurts, never struggles, never needs help, and never has to climb another mountain.

But into the person God is still shaping me to become.

A person whose story carries scars.

A person who still needs rest.

A person who is learning to receive love.

A person who is not finished healing.

A person who is still climbing.

And a person who is learning, little by little, that even in the lowest place, she is not beyond the reach of God.

The heart broke.

The heart was mended.

The scars remained.

And somehow, it became even more meaningful.

Because the goal was never to pretend it had never broken.

The beauty was in the mending.

And the God who has carried me this far is not finished with my story yet.