Well this is an analogy I won’t forget! <3
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I think that “we” in “something we don’t understand” deeply related to what @LM77 said about everyone’s journey being so individual and personal. People may be finding community, but nobody’s story is exactly the same to anyone else’s. “I can’t understand because I’m not that person.”
(except for the fact that I am…at least, one version of “that person” on my own ride, as it were.)
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@LM77 found a group of people who were working through their understanding of what it means to believe the Bible and evolutionary science.
Sometimes we can understand and sometimes we cannot. What Paul wrote about how we are able to comfort others with the comfort we received is important. So saying categorically we cannot ever understand the questions that other people are asking is empty conjecture.
It’s just as wrong to think I fully understand another person’s journey or that I can speak to everybody’s dark night of the soul.
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Maggie ran smack into an immovable solid wall. A door was graciously and marvelously opened for her on the ground floor by her heavenly Father, believe it or deny it, not that she didn’t have some climbing to do on the other side.
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Enjoyed the article. I seem to vacillate between stages 3-5. Like the stages of grief, it seems we can be in several of these stages at the same time, and they are not necessarily in numerical order.
Another author using the mountain metaphor is David Brooks in his book The Second Mountain, in which he describes the first mountain as our quest for success before entering the valley and needing to climb the second mountain to find joy and meaning in service, grossly simplified.
Indeed, we may find fellow travelers along the path who share our thoughts, struggles and goals, but our path up the rock is often a solitary one. While not a rock climber, both in climbing and in faith, we have to trust the Rock.
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I liked the word play on the Rock and wished David Brooks had more to say about that.
Sometimes God makes it easy and provides a door, and sometimes he makes it difficult. That affliction, through which we receive comfort, so we can comfort others, is no joke.
As someone who was troubled for a long time by doubts, I am here to say that you do not have to read every book on the resurrection and NT criticism to know that Jesus is Lord.
There is a better way than what was sold to me for years. And neither is it comforting doubters in some kind of post-modern doubt that does not even approach the knowledge the NT describes. Nor is it blind faith.
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This takes on a whole other meaning living near the Golden Gate Bridge, hopefully the wrong one.
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Perhaps I should have said ‘sweaters’ for friends across the pond 
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I felt alone during deconstruction. It was depressing to have the light of Christ stripped from your life. Is there any greater loss? This article is nice in the sense that it can tell someone “you are not alone” but aside from that I see no real meat inside that would have helped me navigate it. It seems like a long platitude. Imagine being stuck in a well with someone. Its great you aren’t alone (I think) but how do we get out?
Vinnie
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Thanks Liam. I am reminded of what the apostle John wrote,
“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”
1 John 4: 20
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Well, you know, they don’t teach us proper English English over here. I wonder if anyone has done a comparative study on how fast languages mutate when isolated from the motherland. English would be a quick one and French slower I think. Of course with smart phones is anyone ever isolated enough to allow the Genesis of a new dialect nowadays?
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That’s a great point. And opens up all kinds of worm-filled cans about who ‘owns’ a particular dialect/language/pattern of speech, etc.
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As one free soloist to another I’d love to hear more about your journey though I can appreciate that isn’t generally anything one leaves hanging out in public with one’s onesies and the rest of the wash. A PM would be welcome if you felt like sharing.
I think everyone is on the same mountain. But some have a route map or description they rely on while others are just looking for one. Then some groups have maps that seem not to align well with what one finds. Of course no matter how good a map or guide might be, route finding always requires some interpretation and experience. Then there are some who see no mountain, who imagine they are on a featureless terrain where no direction is ‘up’. But that isn’t us.
Edited to suggest that perhaps there are also some so content with studying their map that they see no reason to climb at all: everything one might want to know is right there on the map after all. But then why was the map made and how can the journey help mold you if you never climb?
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As I heard one person jokingly refer to the “Is it a language or just a dialect” demarcation … his observation: “A language is just a dialect with a standing army.”
I had to think about that for a moment when I first heard it.
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Perfection.
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The metaphor that came to me (i believe our Father graciously impressed it upon my mind) when i was going through a “stage 4” experience was that of a flooded river. I was afraid and didn’t know how to cross it on my own, yet i had to cross it. That is when the words “press in” became so real and beautiful to me because as i “pressed into” our Father through His Word, He led me through that flooded river, one step at a time - each step, a “Solid Rock” rising up from the floodwater - many of those steps were scriptures that revealed His care for us, answered prayers, and realizations of the blessings He had already given me. We are never alone in our climb up the mountain or in our forging of the flooded river. He will never leave nor forsake us. He loves us all so very much!!!
A verse that comes to mind after reading these posts is one that our LORD gave me right before experiencing this crisis, which i hope might help others too, “Give thanks in every circumstance for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” -I Thessalonians 5:18. I couldn’t understand how this could be possible, but looking at this verse more deeply, one can see that it implies trust in our Father God. This verse is bookended by “Pray without ceasing” and “Do not quench the Spirit” and is in the middle of the Apostle Paul’s beautiful exhortations to believers in Thessalonica - all centered on the believer’s relationship with Christ Jesus - and how to keep that relationship vibrant and growing even in the most difficult and seemingly impossible times.
Then the passage goes on with the encouraging words, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.” (verses 23 & 24). To know it is our Father Himself actually working in us and sanctifying us can be the greatest source of comfort during the most fiery trials.
We cannot understand another’s trials, yet we can be sympathetic; nor can we as humans speak to them, but our Father God through His Word, the LORD Jesus Christ can. Nothing that we are experiencing is a surprise to Him, the omniscient God of this universe. When we are faced with a mountain or a flooded river we have a choice - to run away or to press in. I encourage you to press into our Father God, the “God of peace.” He is faithful.
Amen
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Welcome, and solid first post!
(@moderators: Discourse’s automated first post notification banner headline has gone away. Can it be brought back without disruption of other administratively selected options or option sets?)
It’s not exactly a family joke, but that’s the easy one – you can almost always be thankful that the circumstance is not worse. 
Ephesians 5:20 is way harder:
…always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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That fits my life since a couple of years before my mom died and all my energy was devoted to caring for her . . . except for times when I couldn’t take it and fled for a day or two. But once she was gone things never went back to “normal” and I constantly live with the worry that there is something I’ve forgotten that will bring disaster.
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