Pictures don't show the full story.

"Are you sure you want to do this hike?"

"Yes," I reply. But in my head I can think of a list of reasons why I'm not ready.

Turtlehead Peak was a hike I had been eyeing for months, but I wasn't completely ready. I was out of shape, unmotivated, and feeling like I was at rock bottom in life. All things that can be a recipe for disaster. A few weeks prior, I had found out scary news about my health. Work was taking everything out of me. Friends were gone. Relationships felt stagnant. Life had changed, and was still changing.

The last thing I needed to do was (literally) climb a mountain, when I felt I had so many in my life already. But here I was, standing at the bottom of another mountain, staring up at the challenge before me, thinking "What have I done? I can't turn back now. What if a helicopter has to rescue me?"

I wasn't trained to take on the task of such a difficult hike. The bad boy of all hikes. I knew I could finish it, but it would just take time (a lot of time).

So I took the first step. And a few more steps. And according to my Fitbit, 17,702 steps later, I was done.

But it wasn't easy. It was ugly. Very ugly.

You see, pictures, don't show the full story. Throughout this hike, I struggled. I wanted to cry. I wanted to give up. I needed breaks. I needed encouragement.

But I did it.

In life, we're facing mountains every day, sometimes small or sometimes the size of Mount Everest. We can't avoid it. We can't avoid the problems, the pain, the anxiety of not knowing how we're going to make it through another step, another day. Yes, it's going to be hard to make it up the mountain. We'll cry. We'll want to give up, but there's a God with open arms saying, "I got you. I'm here. Follow Me. I'll show you the path".

And there's no better feeling in the world, then being loved by a God who walks with you through your pain, through every step, on every trail.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." Psalm 34:8