There are many ways we come to parenting. For some of us it is a dream we have had since we played with dolls as little girls. For others it came at a season we would not have chosen. For others of us it was delayed, postponed, or upended by various reasons.

When the day arrives despite what we may have expected, we are overwhelmed with a love we could not have imagined. But we also feel more inadequacy than we might have guessed as we recognize the responsibility in our arms and how much we do not know about this new role.

In the midst of those early weeks of exhaustion, we are grateful for our own mothers, aunts, and friends who have walked this journey before us as they offer their stories, insight, and support. We glory in each new thing and our dreams for this little one blossom and grow as we consider who they might become and be. And though it feels as though this “never enough sleep” phase will last forever, it passes and soon we are on to the milestones of crawling, first steps, and more.

Each season of parenting brings fresh challenges and fresh insights and we are on a continual journey of learning about this wondrous creation God planted inside us. Along the way we discover there is much to learn about ourselves as well, no matter how well we thought we knew ourselves.

Whatever challenges the child may have or provide for us, we hold our breath when school begins. Now there will be other standards for them to meet beyond our own dreams, desires, and demands.

How will others see this one we have already poured so much of ourselves into?  Will this child be as smart and able as we believe or hope they will be?

Peers and outside activities slowly get added to our daily family life. Maybe it’s music lessons, concerts, and recitals or maybe it is beginning sports where skills are taught and the “rules of the game” are learned. Each one stretches that child to nudge their interests, skills, and gifts to another level and with that our own expectations, dreams, and hopes sometimes hang on bated breath to see what happens.

When the teen years roll around, we hear the stories of others about the ups and downs of hormones, peers, and challenges in every direction. In the midst of this season (even at its best), we pray for more wisdom than ever and if we glance in the rearview mirror, we start to realize that life was simpler back there when they were little. It was tiring and frustrating, but we could protect them and when they didn’t meet our expectations or desires the issues were smaller.

When we finally near the finish line at the end of our child’s high school, we take a deep breath and pray that somehow we taught them enough and that grace covered our mistakes. When they walk across the stage to receive their diploma, we feel grateful and hope for the next season for them (whether that is college, tech school, learning a trade, or getting a job).

What we discover is that the season of parenting adult children is the hardest of the parenting seasons. It’s worth noting that less is written about this season to alert and guide us than earlier parenting seasons.

We can’t protect them from the adult challenges they face, nor can we prevent them from the disappointments that will come. Whatever character deficits remain in them is now out of our capacity to intervene as we once did. These will be between them and the Lord.

As all of these come their way, our hearts will be saddened and sometimes broken by their choices and their heartaches and challenges. They couldn’t have understood (even if we told them) how adult life would come at them from so many directions testing them because even though they chafed at our discipline they somehow thought it was easier (or would be) for them.

It is then that our prayers grow in fervency and we have a new understanding of the disappointment and anguish felt by another parent … our Father.

We can begin to see more clearly the pain we caused Him. He was cheering for us, hoping for us from the beginning even though He knew where we would slip and fall. He was interceding for us at every step and hoping when we realized an error that we would not make that same choice again while knowing we would.

That kind of parenting, that kind of divine love, led Him to the cross. He couldn’t bear to be separated from us and He knew we would continue to falter, weaken, succumb, and stray from the truth He exposed us to (even after knowing Him).

And that…that models for us the challenge of parenting when things don’t go as we hope or wish at any season, that sets the example of love we are called to draw from Him as we parent our own children. That reminds us of the boundaries He sets in the midst of grace and mercy.

That buoys our prayers that our hope in Him can never be disappointed and He loves our children more than we do.

He brought each one of us through many of those same mistakes, our repeated poor choices (no matter what reason), and we yet found Him in the midst and his grace for parenting extends to us as parents.

“Prayers are answered in ways we don’t choose. The river of grace bubbles up in unexpected places.”

Lisa Wingate

When challenges come our way and obstacles rise like an impassable mountain range, it can be easy to feel we cannot possibly consider ascending through the mountains and seeking passes to the other side. Mountains can be places of great beauty as well as formidable sentinels obstructing where we would most like to go.

Over the years of vacation travel, our family has been blessed to see a variety of landscapes, historical sites, spectacular cities and events, but we are always drawn to the mountains. Something about their beauty and strength pulls us toward their location whenever we look ahead to our next time away.

Perhaps it is our enjoyment of trekking on the trails and discovering the wild flowers tucked into crevices or high meadows not accessible from a roadway. It could be the conversation my husband and I have as we make our way along the path that adds to the treasure trove of memories of other mountain paths.

One reason is undoubtedly the view that comes from climbing above the rolling hills where we live. It can alter perspectives on the daily grind or the unsolved issue plaguing us as well as inspire us and remind us of our Creator.

A climb through the mountains requires a heightening of senses as well. The trail can take unexpected twists and turns or be clogged with a fallen tree. The mountains are also home to many animals we do not find on the plains below. These paths go through their home, their habitat, and they are not sure we are safe.

Wildlife both small and large can be closer than we think in rocky caves we do not see or heavy forested areas filled with shadows. I will never forget one mountain hike where we came upon a slightly muddy area with a clear fresh paw print in the mud. Whether it was a bear or a mountain lion, we do not know but it gave us pause and a reminder that it is better to make noise on the trail rather than to surprise a creature that was not expecting company.

To travel into the mountains requires consideration of the food and water you will need on the trip (even if it is only an hour or two). You won’t find a Starbucks, hamburger shop, or ice cream stands to provide refreshment.

If all of these things are true about actual mountains, why do we forget these very truths apply to other mountains we face as well?

Challenges (a.k.a. mountains) can tempt us to believe we are blocked from movement. We can be persuaded to believe they are impassable and so powerful they will undo us and we sit at the bottom feeling hopeless.

Other times we can decide to charge right up the path without adequate preparation for the trek. Do we have proper shoes, clothing, water, food, a compass, rain gear, and more?

We are not called to cower on the mountains nor to be confined to the plains.

Mountains have much to offer, much to teach us about them, God, and ourselves. They can seem as though nothing is stronger nor impregnable than they are, but that points to what we don’t know about mountains.

“Where there’s a mountain, there’s always a river flowing nearby. Ultimately the river is the more powerful of the two.”

Lisa Wingate

(All photos taken by Pam Ecrement on some of our loveliest mountain treks.)

There are many ways we can be stingy beyond whether or not we are giving financially or being generous. Those other ways are less obvious to us, but not less important.

Who can you name who has believed in you even when you may not have seen the possible in yourself?  I hope you don’t need to think a long time to answer, but many cannot answer that easily. Others cannot name anyone since childhood perhaps.

What does it cost us to invest in, hope for, and believe in someone else and demonstrate that to them?

First of all we must see them and see into them much as Jesus did with others over and over again in his earthly ministry. That requires ridding ourselves of our self-absorption to notice and observe someone else. It also necessitates letting go of our own tendency to compare ourselves with someone else that can result in being stingy with our affirmation.

Believing in someone and offering affirmation about the possibility you see in them is not about flattering them or even perhaps complimenting them. It’s allowing the Lord in you to get a glimpse of his unique design in the other person, see the raw material with its own characteristics, recognize the hidden gems, and then speak life into that possibility in the other person. It is definitely not creating an image of them of our own design.

It gets conveyed in varied ways and with fewer words that are well placed and offered from the Lord’s lens and love in us to that other person. It is poured out because it is an act of love and not held back for fear it will create pride in the other person. (Flattery is what feeds pride, not truly seeing into and affirming the possibility within another person.)

If we are honest with ourselves (if not each other), we all experience doubts about ourselves. Even with maturity some doubts hide in the shadows waiting to pop up and stop us in our tracks or slow us from moving forward.

If you think about that person who believed in you, what happened within you as a result?

“The funny thing about having people believe good things about you is that, without even realizing it, you want to make those things happen.”   

Lisa Wingate

Often their faith in us, their belief in us is something we need to be able to walk on until our own is developed.

The messages of those who believed in me seemed sparse during my childhood, but when they came to me later they were etched in my heart, mind, and spirit with indelible ink.

A little white-haired lady spoke the words, “You’re going to have victory over this today,” when the challenges of the day were so high I could not see over them. It made ALL the difference. I believed and saw her faith when my own was wavering.

That was more than 40 years ago, but I remember it in vivid detail because she was speaking life into me through a faith and vision beyond her own faith or desire for me. Her words sparkled with a light that pointed the way to the One who believed in what He had purposed uniquely for me.

It would be a significant thing to be able to tell you there was a long list of others I could name; but even though there are some, there are not nearly so many as could have been. You see it is not common for someone to be a conduit of this gift, this belief and faith, but I cannot help but think that it should be something all of us experience multiple times over the course of our lives (no matter what our age).

Even though such persons may be few in any of our lives, they have the power to change everything. Offering such words of hope and belief do cost us something, but the dividends are multiplied many times over.

Those who see the possible in us plant within us seeds to see the possible to believe in someone else.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”

Proverbs 25:11 (ESV)

Our world can seem upside down and out of alignment much of the time. It leaves us longing for something more, different and better even on some of our best days. We hear talk about heaven but despite our best efforts to imagine it from what scripture may tell us, we fall short of any clear sense of it.

Elyse Fitzpatrick in Home: How Heaven and the New Earth Satisfy Our Deepest Longings describes our dilemma this way: “…how could I possibly tell you about something as simple as an orange if you had never tasted one? How could I tell a color-blind person about the sea in the Virgin Islands…or try to describe what it will be like when we have more than just the three types of color receptors our eyes presently have…or that we’ll have unlimited strength and a new body that is perhaps as changed as an acorn is when it grows into a seventy-five-foot oak?”

Nonetheless, we wonder and are curious what life and our surroundings will be like in eternity when we are on the new earth. Elyse Fitzpatrick longs to know what that will be like and takes the reader on a twelve-chapter journey to make us thirst for that place and life as we may never have before. Doing so can help us live our life now and here while keeping the there in view and remind us that our discontent in this life can only be answered when we truly are “home”.

The author had not planned to write a book on this topic but had become aware of a longing within her she could not nail down except to describe it as “homesickness.”  Her description of the feeling was as follows:

     “I felt it all the time, even when I was happy. It wasn’t just sorrow. It was a longing: a pining for a better place and time…no, a perfect place and time; a different reality. It felt like longing for home, but not for a  home I had ever been to.”

This longing led Elyse Fitzpatrick on searches through scripture, words of theologians, and other research sources to try to tease out more about what life in the other reality awaiting us after death might be like. What she discovered was a powerful view of what we can look forward to including a reminder of the garden pictured in Revelation and how earth before it was corrupted by the fall of man and sin began in a beautiful garden. She noted that gardens are found throughout scripture.

“So what will our new home be like? In order to answer that question, let’s think about what the original garden was like. It was, after all, the place we were created to live, and we are headed back there once again. God isn’t finished with his garden world. In fact, he’s blasted open the doors and emblazoned a banner that reads, Welcome home, sons and daughters! on the gates.”

Elyse Fitzpatrick

There will be no more bucket lists as Elyse describes the new earth. The vast mountain ranges, deep seas, and colors beyond what we can envision will all be waiting for us to explore.  In addition to our worship, many of the gifts already designed uniquely in each of us will be used in this new earth. And guess what? We’ll never run out of time for conversations with people from ages past and all over the world and delighting in this place untouched by sin and clouded with pain and sorrow will be something we never tire of.

If you wonder about what’s next after life on this earth, Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book will give you new glimpses to consider.

And so, it all came true, just as He said.

He was betrayed, mocked, beaten, taunted, humiliated and crucified. Even though many had heard Him say this would happen, I suspect there were more than a few who were still shocked at the happenings they had witnessed.

How many of them felt anguish at what they had seen?

How many of them had felt sorrow over their response to Him?

Then, just as He said, in the early morning of the first day of the week, He was missing from the tomb and alive once more. He was back and yet not the same and not permanently. Even those closest to Him did not immediately recognize Him.

For forty days He will walk the earth and be seen by those who will then bear witness that He is indeed alive. Then, He ascends into heaven. How they must have longed for Him to stay.

Those who had followed Him were not leaders, not scholars. They were common people. He had taught them so much, but how much had they understood? How much had been woven into the fabric of their hearts?

Despite all that He had said, it would have been easy for some to think this was the end of it all. For some, He had again not met their expectations or hopes.

I think so often how much you and I are like them. When our expectations and hopes in Him are disappointed, it can be so easy to doubt, to turn away, to give in to our self-pity, and to give up on trusting Him no matter what.

He had promised them He was sending them a Helper, but I cannot help but think they could not have known what that meant. What would happen in the Upper Room had never happened before. They had no frame of reference, but from this ragtag group of followers, one hundred twenty would obey in this and wait in that room for what would come next.

They would discover that what they had witnessed was not the end. It was not even the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the power of His life and ministry that would fill each of them in such a way that His message would spread across the entire world. Despite persecution, despite all obstacles, it would continue to spread and go on living to the present moment.

You and I are still a part of that “going on” in this present hour.

We have celebrated Easter, but what now?

Do we recognize that He has placed the path before us and entrusted that we would continue to spread the Good News?

It can be easy for any one of us to listen or read the story and think of it as a scene from “back there” and fail to realize it is still ongoing and if you and I are alive today, each of us who call Him Lord has been given a role to play.

Yes, He could do it without us, but He has chosen to invite us to participate with Him.

Each of His disciples had a different path. We, His current disciples each have a different path.

Are we listening?

Have we responded and if so, how?

They walked with Him, but we live by and through Him. They saw Him ascend to His Father. We may yet see Him return to the same Mount of Olives from which He ascended.