Life is a wall.
It’s a wall that’s huge, impossibly tall and wide, made of the hardest stone, so we have to climb it to get over it.
When we start climbing, it’s easy. Simple. It’s fun, even enjoyable. The surface is smooth. The footholds are strong and well-defined.
But as we climb, the going gets rougher. Smooth surfaces become hard and rough. The footholds grow fewer and fewer. We become tired, our muscles aching. We wish that we could stop.
Some of us let go of the wall at that point, and fall back to earth.
But others… others keep climbing. We keep climbing, though our arms and legs are tired, though our hands become worn and ragged and bloodied, though the air grows thin.
We keep climbing. Scaling the wall.
Because every once in a while, as we ascend, we see the stone of the wall thin out and become transparent as glass, and in those moments we can see the other side.
The ones who go on climbing grow more tired. Our bodies ache, our muscles wither. The air grows cold. And as the ascent continues, the stone becomes rougher than ever, and the footholds disappear. Each inch up the wall becomes a struggle.
But each inch also brings us closer to the top. To the other side that we can see as the wall slowly becomes thinner and more transparent.
And sometimes, we lose our grip, and slide back down the wall… some of us stop then.
Others take a rest, and then climb back up again.
And those few of us who reach the top, exhausted and broken but triumphant… they’re the ones with the clearest view of the other side.
- BHS