My Mountaintop Experiences

My "mountaintop experiences" with God have normally not come about during easy, carefree, happy time in my life. Instead, they have come out of suffering, agony, self-doubt, fear...those are the times when I have seen God most clearly and heard Him whisper the loudest.

The first few months of becoming a new parent, struggling with Post Partum Depression, praying constantly that He would give me the strength just to get out of bed in the morning. It was during those times that I can truly say that God was closer than the air I breathe.

In Korea when I doubted His goodness as I grappled with the question of "Why God allows such horrific things to happen to His children?" In answer to those doubts I asked God to give me peace past understanding. He did give me that peace and He also gave me an assurance of His nature which is Love. Then He allowed me to experience a few moments in His Presence when I literally felt His presence like a warm blanket wrapped around me. I longed for that "mountaintop experience" to never end.

Flash forward a number of years and I am lying on a clinic bed in Hungary waiting to see the ultrasound picture of our baby at 13 weeks. Then the doctor tells me that there is no heartbeat and the baby has died. In a moment God whispered to my spirit...The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be praised." That voice, those words, were not from me but from God Himself, comforting and strengthening me in that time of loss.

There have been many other times, especially with relationship struggles, that He has given me such peace and the knowledge that He is with me, that He is my Defender and that no matter what road I travel, He goes before me and beside me.

Those have been "mountaintop experiences" that I will cherish, look back to and lean on, knowing that my God is so much greater than anything this world can send me. He is with me in the light but oh how close He is to me in the dark.