We all have Mountains to Climb
“If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing.” – Henry B Eyring
Over the past few months, it seems that my trials of faith have been quite overwhelming. It feels as though I am at the base of a large and steep mountain. The harder I try to climb, the harder it gets. I feel no progress. Somedays I think I have climbed further up and then something happens. It rains and I slip; or I lose sight of my goal, look back, and instead of focusing on how far I`ve come, I get stuck on how much further I have to go. Somedays I sit and cry while thinking to myself, “There must be a way up this mountain! Someone has climbed this same mountain (trial) before! They did it, so I can too! I am sure I have faced mountains this high or higher before! I made it through! What is the difference between then and now?! I have exhausted all my resources to climb up! What more can I do? There must be a way! No mountain has ever NOT been climbed!”
I learned a lesson from a movie I watched recently that helped me understand how I was going to need to climb mountains in my life. The movie is called, “The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain”. It is a 1995 film that I loved to watch as a child. The story takes place during World War I, in a small Welsh town that relies on its local mountain as a source of pride. When two English cartographers, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant-one of my favorite actors) and George Garrad, arrive to measure the mountain, they discover the landmark is 16 feet short of achieving the official “mountain” classification. Disheartened that their mountain has been deemed a hill, the townsfolk devise a plan to make up those 16 feet.
The rest of the movie involves the entire town working daily to bring soil up the hill and try and make a 16 foot peak, so they could call their “hill” a “mountain”. Of course they face many obstacles, but in the end, they learn valuable lessons of relying on each other and the incredible power of love. I realized that, ironically, the welsh town was looking to make a mountain to fix their problem. My goal was to make my mountain a hill that was much easier to climb. But, the end concept was the same. I needed the help of others to climb the mountain!
“There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly, ‘Give me this mountain,’ give me these challenges.”- Spencer W Kimball
I needed someone with a greater knowledge and vision of just what made a mountain a mountain (like the cartographer Hugh Grant). I needed him because he will have already climbed the mountain and be waiting at the top for me to ask for a rope to be thrown down so he could help pull me up! Christ was that guy! My family and good friends were the town people. They have faith in me and they know how to help me get up that mountain. Sometimes I have found though, that my family or friends do not have all the resources I need to make it all the way up the hill. This can be a terrible feeling. I have felt that often lately. But that doesn’t mean that I have to make the rest of the trip alone. That’s what home teachers, visiting teachers, neighbors, and random people are for! I just have to ask for those people to come into my life, and trust with patience!
“God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other” -Spencer W Kimball
Having faith and being a strong member of the church doesn’t mean going at everything solo to try and prove yourself! It also doesn’t mean that every problem that comes along will be solved instantly with a few prayers and a declaration that “you believe”. Faith makes the journey up the mountain more steady and bearable. In the words of Jeffrey R Holland, “If sometimes the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heed-so it was with the best people there ever were!”
Faith is believing without seeing. While serving a mission in San Francisco, I learned that in the winters, a thick fog covers the city. It can be difficult to drive, especially late at night. If you are familiar to the winding roads, the darkness and thick gray is less of a daunting task to get through. Similar is the case with faith. When exercised frequently, we become more familiar with it’s path. Then, when darkness appears, we can move forward knowing that our destination is not far off. If we did it before, we can do it again.
On occasion we may find that the fog of life creates a visible barrier that seems to thick to ever overcome. It is during this time when we may question our faith and ability to get through so many long desperate hours. It seems that the harder one tries, the harder it gets. Here is when we fall in humility to our knees and plead, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
When traveling through a foggy period of our life, we can choose to dim the lights or brighten them to help us see more clearly. Faith comes when we choose to find it. Faith is a transforming power. It makes one’s weaknesses become strengths and one’s blemishes fade and be new.
Faith is found in the lives of many saints throughout the world. Saints like a mother whose son falls and suffers a traumatic head injury. That same son, who not too many years before, was covered in terrible 3rd degree burns from a fire accident with his brother. That same son who years later would eventually choose a different life for himself. Yet her love is constant and unchanged! His mother, is a mother of faith. Saints like the woman in Africa. Whose husband left her with four children to raise and no income of her own. Seeing the powerful examples of faith, I have a determination “to be better, to be more faithful—more kind and devoted, more charitable and true as our Father in Heaven is and as so many of you already are.” “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
-Additional Readings: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/mountains-to-climb?lang=eng
I am a wanderlust spirit who dreams of seeing every country! I love humanitarian work and hope to one day have my own self-sustaining nonprofit organization. I love to be outdoors doing outdoor recreational activities. I have a degree in Exercise Science from Brigham Young University-Hawaii, and I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration. I am a dancer, a singer, and yogi! I believe that this life is all about progression and not perfection. I also believe that every girl should be told she is beautiful often, because we really do not hear it enough. Finally, I believe that faith is not so much a belief, but something we live!
I loved this, Anna! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! <3