Many nights you’ll find me driving up the mountain to Monte Sano, turning around sharp curves, head turned to left to see the horizon. I slow down when no one is behind me, taking in the change in temperature as it slowly cools the higher my car climbs. The golden light filtering through the trees makes the most magical shadows, slow country music is playing, and for a short time my troubled soul feels peace. The sun is setting. The mountains are comforting. The day is over. We’ve made it.

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Back in February, before I started my job, I went to Pretty Place, South Carolina, an open air chapel built on an overlook facing the Blue Ridge Mountains. A stunning wooden cross is centered in the chapel, and as you sit in the pews, you need not a minister preaching His word to you, you simply look out and see His Majesty unfold in the sunrise. Someone could watch that sunrise without ever reading a single word of scripture and know that only a God who is full of beauty and kindness could create something so spectacular. That’s why, right above the cross, inscribed into the beams of the chapel roof it quotes Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” How could you not look up at these mountains and ask such a question? Who could have made such a spectacular sight? Christ alone.

Before Pretty Place and before I was physically able to hike, I couldn’t quite understand people’s obsession with it. I thought it was just a millennial fad that would soon fade. But as my body got stronger and I’ve been able to see more mountains, either by walking or driving, I’ve found myself needing to be near them more so than ever. Few times in my life have I felt closer to Christ than when I’m looking over creation from atop a vantage point.

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I walked alone down a hiking trail recently, no music, no friends, just myself. It was exceptionally still that day. The path was a little tricky, which forced me to be slow and methodical, paying attention to every sound and sight. I was forced to slow down. As I climbed I felt Him there. For the first time in quite a while I felt His presence. Suddenly I knew that He knew. I knew that He had heard every word I had been desperately crying out. He saw every night that I sobbed into my pillow. He knew. He knew how broken my heart was, and still is, and He knew. He knew that as the fall season began, some tough memories and heartache were going to return. He knew. So there He walked, letting me know that as hard as this was going to be, I wasn’t alone. On that mountain, He knew.

I see why God called Moses, Elijah, Abraham, and even Himself to the mountains…this is the vantage point. This is where He reveals Himself ( Gen. 22:1–14; Ex. 3:1–2; Ex. 19–20). Some believe that Eden was atop a mountain, this glorious land with a beautiful flowing river, had so much evidence that it was indeed a “holy garden mountain” (see link). We see that in Ezekiel the long awaited Promise Land, the New Creation, described as:

There we will be, with Him, atop a mountain. Fully at rest. Fully at peace.

He was there on the mountain, and I just keep going back to them because I need to feel that again and again. I need the slowness, the struggle, the quiet. These mountains force us to see how much He’s doing and how small we are. It’s not just because we’re “closer to the heavens.”  No, I think it’s because we finally take the time to taste the heaven around us. He’s here now, whether we sit on our couch and write a blog, or stand overlooking the sun peeking behind mountains.

He’s here. And that is enough.

Much love,

Holly