He is My Mountain

If anyone knows me, they are aware of how I’ve longed to live in the Rockies of Northern Colorado for more than four years. In fact, I am convinced that it is where I am supposed to live. I am as sure of that as I was to marry my husband, to enter the Catholic Church, to adopt little orphan girls from China. I knew those things as much as I knew that I was born to Richard and Elaine Foster.

A snapshot of us in Our Rockies.

It is now apparent we will not be moving to Colorado anytime soon. It has been a very sorrowful time for me as I face this reality. It is the same sorrow I have known since the adoptions could not happen.

I also know that I am a writer and have much good to share with the world. In addition, I know that building a profitable distributorship with Shaklee Corporation is meant to be our/my financial foundation.

I have allowed much of life to interrupt being a writer and distributor – like the birth and death of our Hard Bean Café and the care for and unexpected death of my two sweet parents in 2013, to name two of many. Sometimes I try to convince myself that I could never be expected to ‘do everything.’ It’s how I try to pacify my guilt over interrupting the flow of the call on my life. But in the end, every reason is an excuse. Some excuses are relatively valid but all excuses obstruct. If I truly believed what I am called to do and be, I would find a way.

So, I come to 2014. Soon I will hit 64. How much time do I really have left to accomplish what I believe in and that will make a lasting mark in the world around me? How much time is there to move to Colorado and actually enjoy some strong and healthy years in the mountains that I love? Sure, I feel great today but absolutely no one knows the hour or the day when we will be called home. I feel like my time is running out and that I have not been a good and faithful servant.

On March 1^st, I participated in a Re-treat called Your Story Matters. It was a sweet morning highlighted with guided meditation by my friend Lyn Morse Brown. She read Mark 8:22 about one of the many blind men Jesus healed. After the reading, she guided us through a series of thoughtful questions intended to help us relate to being in the place of that particular blind man. Jesus took our hand as the blind mand removed us from the bustling village, he placed his healing hands on us, and he asked what we wanted of him. Here is the picture I breathed during the meditation:

There were people I did not know, all around me, and there were many distractions to my (meditative) thoughts.

Then I felt Jesus take my hand securely in his and pull me gently toward him. I leaned into him and wrapped my arm through his as we began walking up a rocky way. I couldn’t see where we were or where we were headed. I didn’t stumble because he held onto me.

This happens to be a smoother part of the rocky path we took

After climbing the rocky path, my eyes were opened, and I discovered us at that place in the Rockies where Ed, Annie and I had hiked a year or so ago an enormous clearing in the woods, a great hill that was wide open, green, and very steep and I saw the same lone bench we three had rested on.

Jesus and I sat on that same bench and looked out over the expanse of rolling mountains before us, easy to see because of the wide and open hill that held us.

An expansive view of some of His creation.

I leaned against him as an inner sigh of contentment began to pervade my soul. I was so happy to be in that beautiful spot with him, a place I know and love. (In fact, I have often envisioned myself sitting on that very bench, while the muse takes my pen and weaves words that change lives.) I was thrilled, actually, to be there with him.

And I told him I needed to know his presence every moment and his direction and his assurance that I am fulfilling his desires for me.

And with a strong yet soothing voice he told me to be assured. That he has everything under control – everything – our move here (the Rockies) and my writing and my business – and not to be afraid. And I melted within. It was like my heart was overflowing with a warm, honey like substance – soft, sweet, warm. And I knew his safety.

He placed his hands on my head and said, “Know my presence.” And I had peace that looks like a glass-like lake high in the Rockies, pristine and crystal clear – like Lily Lake when it is quite still. And all was well.

Lily Lake at RMNP

And I knew that Jesus is calling me to peace with him, to trust that I do know him, and to remember that he will keep me on his path. I do not have to worry or fret about staying on it.

And he said, “I am your path. I am your quiet place. I am your mountain.”

He is my path. He is my quiet place. He is my mountain and my cool, refreshing stream of life. And I see it. And I see him.

Thank you.

He is My Mountain: My Protection and Perfect Peace

(When I wrote this piece, I was so happy to find pictures I had taken of those very same places in my meditation!)

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