He Carried Me Down the Mountain

 

There was a time when I was discouraged in my healing, and I felt like I had somehow ended up right back where I started. It felt like the same emotions, the same questions, the same ache. I remember saying to a dear friend, “Why am I here again? Haven’t I already worked through this?”

She offered me a picture I’ve never forgotten and in the years since I have thought a lot about what she said. 

She told me, “Trauma can feel like living alone on top of a mountain. Isolated. Exposed. Stuck in a place you never meant to stay. If we are honest, it’s a place we never wanted to be. But it felt safe up there. Eventually, healing must come, and healing—real healing—is the long journey of walking down off that mountain.

But it’s not a straight path.

It winds.

It circles.

It doubles back in ways that can make you feel disoriented.

So sometimes, when you look around, it feels like you’re standing in the same place you’ve already been. The same view. The same terrain. The same pain is rising in familiar ways.

But you’re not.

You’re just on the same side of the mountain…further down than you were before.”

That truth settled deep in me.

Because I realized what felt like failure was actually progress. What felt like being stuck was really movement—slow, steady, often unseen, but it was real. Healing isn’t a clean descent. It is layered, patient, and sometimes painfully repetitive.

Over time, I realized something else too—I did come down off that mountain. Not in a single moment, not in a dramatic breakthrough, but step by step, grace by grace.

And even now, I know there will always be places in me that need healing. Always more growing to do. But I am not where I once was. I have come down off that mountain.

The lessons I learned there still live in me. The strength that was formed there didn’t disappear when the season changed. And more than anything, I did not walk that mountain alone.

There was One who walked with me every step of the way.

The One who, when I was too weary to keep going, carried me.

And He still does.

So when I find myself in a place that feels familiar—when old wounds whisper or old struggles resurface—I remind myself:

This isn’t the top of the mountain. I’ve already come down.

I See You Through Grace

 

It's been two years. 

I don’t know if this is normal, but in the two years since you’ve been gone, I’ve come to understand you more.

Maybe it’s because I’ve changed. I see things differently now.

I look at your life, and I see the little girl who grew into a woman, a wife, a mother, a young widow, a grieving parent, a grandmother, and a child of God.

I see the trauma you walked through. The hardships. The suffering. The uncertainty. And I realize that in each season, you did what you believed was best.

You did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time. Isn’t that all any of us can do?

It wasn’t always perfect. Mistakes were made. But you kept showing up. 

I know I said this, in part, at the end of your life, and I hope you fully understood. I am grateful God has given me the ability to forgive and give grace in those spaces that hurt, or I just didn’t understand. 

I’m still learning from your life. Still growing, still softening, still understanding. And so in that way, you are still with me.

And now, with time and distance, I can say what I couldn’t before: I see you with grace. I carry less blame, less hurt, and more understanding. I hope you knew, even when I didn’t know how to show it, that I loved you.