I love the mountains. They are in my blood. From one strand of DNA ancestry I’ve traced back to the Scottish Highlands to my great grandparents settling in these mountains, they are in my blood. The ocean is pretty, the great plans are interesting, the Great Lakes are amazing, but I’ll take mountains any day of the week. Not being a flatlander, I’m always glad to get back to them when I’ve been away.

Our mountains aren’t huge compared to the Rockies or Himalayas, but they are grand to me. According to Wikipedia, the Appalachian Mountain Range was formed about 480 million years ago and were at one time as tall as the Rockies and the Alps. Natural erosion of wind and rain wore the down over time.

Someone sent me an inspirational photo this morning that said, “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there!”

Isn’t that the truth!

Anyone with a little age on them has had to climb some mountains in life. Spiritual. Emotional. Financial. Physical. Career paths. Education. Marriage.

The thing about mountains is that they are not put there to be stared at and feared. They have their own beauty as we face the challenges of reaching the top.

I had company from Nashville over the weekend and the young man brought his 4-wheel drive truck. I took them up the mountain in several different spots, not realizing he had never been off-road that far before or gotten his truck that dirty. He didn’t say a word about that until we got to the top. He was laughing and hitting mud holes with such joy, I thought he was used to the process. Imagine my surprise when I discovered he had never done that before.

I like to take every day events or ideas and see what the Bible has to say on the subject. With the help of internet, that information is only a click away. The bible is filled with verses and concepts about mountains. I believe when the earth was being formed at the hands of God, He delighted in the rivers, valleys, mountains, deserts, and different landforms. When He saw what He had created, He said, “It is good.”

Of the many accounts in the Bible about mountains, I was struck by the number of stories where man went up to a mountain to encounter God. References are also made about God coming down to the mountain. I have often gone to a mountain summit or overlook to draw close to God. It puts me in awe of Him to be on a mountain height. I can only imagine the Rockies, the Alps, or the Himalayas with their additional height.

We have figurative mountains in this life that we must climb or crossover. These are the places which may seem overwhelming that we must overcome in order to move forward with our lives. In the Bible the disciples Matthew, Mark, and Luke all referred to the concept that if we could have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could speak to a mountain and it would be removed.

Maybe the amount of faith we have has to do with the mountains we have already overcome. Some struggles in life are difficult, but there are often things we have to face unexpectedly that we are not sure we can handle. Sometimes I feel like I’m not facing only one mountain, but a whole mountain range of peaks and valleys.

How big is your mountain?

The good news is that we don’t have to make it to the summit today or figure out all the solutions to our problems, although we might. We just need the courage, faith, and determination that we can make it, we will make it, and then take one step at a time.

Reach longtime Enterprise columnist Judith Victoria Hensley at judith99@bellsouth.net or on Facebook. Check out her blog: One Step Beyond the Door.