Faith Can Move Mountains Beginnings

The beginning of this started back when I was little girl when I was sitting one day with my grandma outside at her picnic table. My grandma was battling this disease known as cancer. My grandma's strong faith in God was an inspiration to me. She was never one to display her being sick! She kept going to church and kept her family motivated through it all. On this particular day, she was outside reading her bible when we showed up at her trailer. Now usually she had her reading done before we got there. She asked my mom to run to the store for her and I stayed behind with my grandma. I asked my grandma if she believed that Jesus was going to heal her. She said, "yes," rather here on earth or in heaven. I asked her if she believed in God and she said "Yes!" Then I remember asking if she was going to see Jesus, and she said,"yes." She held my hand and told me to remember these words, " Faith Can Move Mountains!" She read to me this scripture from Matthew 17:20," And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and is shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." It always stuck with me throughout my life and those words whispered across my heart numerous of times when I was ready to give up on life. About two years ago I felt like I was laying in a deep of my soul! I asked God "Why am I in this pit?" I sat for a moment, and he whispered, " Your not in a pit, but in a valley looking at a mountain." My soul shook and many tears flowed. I asked God, " What do I do with the mountain?" He whispered, " It's time to climb the mountain!" At first I thought God wanted me to write a book called Faith Can Move Mountains. I have it started but it wasn't nearly as fun as I anticipated, so I left it alone. Now, it is pressing on my heart to share the love of Christ through writing and reflecting God's word in my life.

Have you ever climbed at mountain? I did as a teenager in 1994 with our youth group.

I was not an overly active teenager! I do enjoy nature and the outdoors. We went camping with our church youth group to the Adirondacks for the week without any power or running water. We were roughing it! Our youth group leader was in the reserves, so he had us doing crazy things. We had scheduled outings that we had to participate in. The two activities were either canoeing or hiking! There were no other choices! I thought to myself, " I won't fit into a canoe and I don't trust a single person that would flip on me to see if I could swim." I chose to hike! I had one thing of water and I was ready to go. At first it wasn't that bad of a walk into it got steeper! Kinda like our spiritual life isn't it. We have water (Jesus) and our journey has to go different heights. Everyone ran ahead of me but one of our chaperon's husband stayed behind with me. He was not a believer and we were praying for him through our ladies bible study. We continued to walk and I was just talking away to him like most of you know me. We got to the top of this mountain and the view was breath taking. I was in awe. I was the one taking the picture! I remember saying out loud, " If whoever doesn't believe in God is a fool." We turned and walked back down that mountain. About 2 weeks into the school year, I was the president of our Bible Club we had at school and we were participating in the very first wave of meet around the flagpole. I was nervous as can be! I had no idea what God had in store but it was amazing experience. At first it was just those of us the group there and then a few more showed up. We had teachers, passing by parents, high school students, and people of our church. We sang songs and just prayed around that flagpole. Our chaperon came from our camping trip and a told me that her husband had accepted Jesus as his personal savior. At that moment, I realized it is never about me but God.