A Higher Calling Read online

  Praise for

  A Higher Calling

  “An inspirational and captivating story from beginning to end. Harold and Rachel challenge each one of us through fear, faith, and humor to strive for the very best in our lives.”

  —CPT DAVIS, Army officer, and CASEY MARLAR, vlogger and founder of Rosie Daze Boutique

  “I’m grateful for Harold and Rachel, who use their influence to share the truth that even in the face of great adversity, our hope comes from the Lord!”

  —BEN STUART, pastor of Passion City Church, Washington, DC, and author of Single, Dating, Engaged, Married

  A HIGHER CALLING

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Hardcover ISBN 9780525653752

  Ebook ISBN 9780525653769

  Copyright © 2020 by Harold Earls IV and Rachel Earls

  Author is represented by Alive Literary Agency, www.aliveliterary.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

  WATERBROOK® and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Earls, Harold, IV, author. | Earls, Rachel, author.

  Title: A higher calling / by Captain Harold and Rachel Earls.

  Description: First edition | Colorado Springs, Colorado : WaterBrook, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019058091 | ISBN 9780525653752 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525653769 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Marriage—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Married people—Religious life. | Earls, Harold, IV. | United States. Army—Officers—Biography. | Mountaineers—United States—Biography. | Mountaineering—Everest, Mount (China and Nepal) | Everest, Mount (China and Nepal) | Earls, Rachel. | Christian women—Religious life.

  Classification: LCC BV4596.M3 E27 2020 | DDC 277.3/0830922 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058091

  Cover design: Kelly L. Howard

  Cover images: (Everest) saiko30/iStock; (authors) Katherine Ilona Photography

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The First Message

  Chapter 2: Love at First Phone Call

  Chapter 3: “We’re All a Little Weird. And Life Is a Little Weird.”

  Chapter 4: A Million Times Yes

  Chapter 5: A Dangerous Dream

  Chapter 6: Short End of the Stick

  Chapter 7: When Nothing Is Certain, Everything Is Possible

  Chapter 8: The West Point Girlfriend

  Chapter 9: No Food, No Cake, No Condoms

  Chapter 10: An Extra Seventeen Swiss Francs for the Funeral

  Chapter 11: That Could Have Been Me

  Chapter 12: The Dirty Truth of Achieving Big Dreams

  Chapter 13: Promises I Can’t Keep

  Chapter 14: The What-Ifs, the How Comes, and the Why Me’s

  Chapter 15: Beautiful Things Along the Way

  Chapter 16: Summit Fever

  Chapter 17: The Death Zone

  Chapter 18: Snow Blind

  Chapter 19: Dancing with Death

  Chapter 20: Homecoming

  Chapter 21: Ranger School

  Chapter 22: The Next Adventure

  Epilogue

  Photo Insert

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Prologue

  My husband might die.

  I’m wide awake, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling in an unfamiliar room, while these four words loop in my head. I am staying with a friend and fellow military wife in Colorado. Earlier in the day, I tried to keep my composure. But now, in the quiet darkness, I can’t hold back my tears. The worry has set in strong, as this possibility feels very real. Much too real.

  Harold might die.

  My husband, my best friend and the love of my life, chose to leave me to climb a massive mountain halfway across the world…and he wasn’t even a climber when I met him three years ago!

  We haven’t been married for a full year yet. I decided I couldn’t sit at home waiting for Harold. I wanted my own story and my own adventure. I needed a change of pace if I was going to keep my sanity. I didn’t want to stop living a full life and feel stuck in a period of waiting. My plan was to make the most of our time apart, so I embarked on my own trip, leaving Georgia and flying to Colorado, with plans to continue on to several other spots.

  Harold had called me a few hours earlier from Mount Everest’s Advanced Base Camp. He’d sounded exhausted as he told me about the significant snowstorm headed his way, forcing his team to climb back down to a lower elevation. I know with bad weather conditions, a tired body, and many hours of descending in low visibility, the chances of something going wrong are significantly higher.

  I was feeling okay until I received an email from Tommy, Harold’s best friend and their team’s camp manager. I open it again, noting the parts that stand out.

  I woke up this morning to a snowstorm at Base Camp….

  I do not know how extreme this snowstorm is up there but can imagine it has been significant….

  They are currently snowed in at ABC….

  The snow will delay any movement for several days….

  The trails are currently under snow and avalanches will be more prevalent with the fresh powder….

  Please pray that the weather clears up for our team and the others at higher camps and that everybody makes smart decisions, as I expect they will.

  Tommy’s email says movement is delayed, yet I know they are pressing on. Is my husband making a bad decision—perhaps a fatal one?

  I’m terrified. I don’t know when I’ll hear from him next, if at all.

  I am trying to be strong. To enjoy my own adventures. But deep down, I’m afraid of being left alone. I fear if something does happen, I will blame Harold for making the choice to leave. Or maybe I’ll blame myself for letting him go.

  These aren’t the typical worries of a twenty-four-year-old newlywed, but they are my reality until Harold is finally home and in my arms. Every day I’m realizing how precious and fragile life is and what truly matters. It’s not the material things, the success, the money, or our physical appearances. It’s the people we love.

  The little moments count.

  Living with that truth in the forefront of your mind changes you. It’s changing me. I am starting to approach life with an attitude of thanksgiving, even in the midst of my trials. I realize my time with Harold is limited, and time is better spent being joyful and living in love than living in anger, frustration, or stress. I remind myself something I have told others: You are capable of more than you can imagine.
And with God by your side, you will always come out stronger!

  It would be easy to let fear take over, but I’m not going to allow fear to write my story. I won’t be controlled by my current circumstances. Tonight, I choose faith over fear. Just like I did this morning. Just like I will do again tomorrow and the next day and the next. Until Harold is back with me and we are facing our next adventure together.

  As I lie in bed, wiping the tears off my cheeks, I think about all those moments early in our relationship, and I realize something. Little moments can turn out to be big moments, the life-changing ones. Like being contacted out of the blue by a stranger who turns out to be the love of your life…

  1

  The First Message

  HAROLD

  Spoiler alert! I didn’t choose the princess. This love story is a bit more unconventional. In this tale, the guy meets the gal, falls in love, and instead of conquering the dragon, takes off to conquer the world’s tallest mountain, leaving her to question if there will even be a happily ever after.

  For my entire childhood, I was dead certain I would meet a girl and it would be love at first sight. No question about it. I was sure God had a grand, crazy plan for the way I was going to meet my wife.

  I grew up knowing what I wanted out of life and never being scared to go after it. Wild adventures filled my bucket list, from visiting the Maasai tribe on the plains of Africa to exploring the Amazon Rainforest. However, climbing Mount Everest topped the list.

  I don’t hold back from dreaming big, and once I have a dream in mind, I can’t stop thinking about it until I make it happen. If I say I’m going to do something, I will do it or literally die trying. I can’t say that’s the healthiest way to live, especially if the dream is deadly and means leaving behind the ones you love, but that’s who I am.

  I had just started my sophomore year at the United States Military Academy at West Point. I was playing baseball and was part of the Corps of Cadets.

  One weekend I was able to get away and meet my best friend, Tommy, at Disney World. It wasn’t long before I made eye contact with a very pretty girl. She had long hair and attracted quite a crowd. Kids flocked around her, staring as they waited in line to talk to her. She was none other than Princess Jasmine.

  As Tommy and I passed, she looked straight at me in her turquoise two-piece and waved. Or maybe she was motioning for the little kids to walk around us. Either way, I immediately got butterflies.

  Maybe she’s the one, I thought.

  After she was done signing all the kids’ booklets and foreheads, she walked up to us and smiled. “Are you boys too nervous to talk to a princess?”

  I fainted. No, not really, but I felt like I could have. Jasmine must cast spells in addition to granting wishes, because I was hooked! I finally got my nerve up, chased her down, and asked her on a date. Take that, Aladdin! Maybe it was a little cocky of me to think God had set aside a literal princess for me, but nothing is too big for God!

  After my date with Princess Jasmine, though, I realized there wasn’t much there besides an initial physical attraction. I knew the type of relationship I wanted would require a deeper emotional connection and a foundation rooted in God. I imagine God chuckles at us when we think we have it all figured out according to our own master plans, when what we really need to do is loosen our grip on being in control and see what He has in store for us.

  Little did I know, God had someone for me who far exceeded any princess I could have dreamed of. Instead, she was an everyday, sweatpants-wearing, brownie-loving, strong, independent, God-fearing woman. She didn’t wear makeup often, she rarely woke up before nine in the morning, and her car was usually missing a hubcap. But, man, did I fall head over heels for her…and fast.

  RACHEL

  Let’s all take a moment to laugh at the fact that Harold thought Princess Jasmine is the one who grants wishes. The genie would be so offended! That’s my husband for you: master of mixing up story lines and butchering song lyrics. I can’t say those were qualities I was looking for in a spouse, but I’ve come to love his quirks.

  When I began looking for a partner in life, it was important to me to find someone who was ambitious and passionate about working toward his goals, and, boy, did I find him. I met a man who believed big dreams were possible and chased them down with everything he had. This relentless drive, a quality that made me fall in love with him, would also lead him to pursue a dangerous dream that placed both of us on a precarious journey. A journey that easily might have killed Harold.

  Like most girls, I have always loved love. Chick flicks are my jam, and I often dreamed about how my own love story would play out. I wanted a love better than what was in books and television shows, better than anything I could imagine. I’m not going to lie, though: I didn’t know if that kind of great love actually existed in the real world.

  By the time I was a sophomore in college, I was discouraged by the thought of love. Actually, discouraged doesn’t do justice to the intensity of my feelings. I felt broken, confused, angry, and lost. I had all but stopped believing in love. I had just ended a relationship with someone I thought I saw my future with, and I had never felt that kind of heartache before. It was a deep ache in my soul that wouldn’t go away. It lingered and festered. Truthfully, I listened to some of the lies it created in my head. I allowed questions to consume me until I was drowning in self-doubt.

  It’s natural to hold on to things for too long, but healing can’t happen until we finally let go. I was hurt, and I didn’t want to be hurt again. I built walls, became closed off, and pushed away interested guys for a time. I still longed to be loved and to give love in return, but I didn’t feel like it would ever happen for me. Quite frankly, I had a lot of healing to do.

  I spent the next year working on my heart and grew to be content being single. I did, however, continue to pray for my future husband, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t meet him until I was out of college. In my mind, I knew everyone I was going to know in college already, and there was no way any of them were the man God intended for me.

  Turns out God had a different plan.

  One night before bed, at the start of my junior year, I wrote this in my journal:

  Hey, God,

  Thank You for loving me unconditionally and pursuing me relentlessly. My heart is happy, and You know it’s been a long road of healing. I trust in Your plan for my life and I know in Your timing, You’ll bring the right man into my life. I don’t need that right now, and it’s okay if it’s much further down the road than I thought. But can You just give me a sign that he is out there?

  I love You so much, and I’m excited for what this year has to bring. I’m ready!

  Love, Rach

  The very next day, I got a strange Facebook message from a guy I’d never heard of. His name was Harold.

  HAROLD

  For over a year, Tommy had been telling me about his redheaded cousin.

  “You have to meet her,” Tommy said. “Her name’s Rachel, and she’s awesome.”

  “Sorry, man. I’m just not that into redheads.”

  No offense to all the beautiful redheads out there. I was clearly delusional.

  Eventually he showed me a picture of Rachel. Hot diggity dog! My jaw dropped. I didn’t expect her to be a knockout, given Tommy’s looks. (It’s fun taking jabs at your best friend when you’re writing a book!) To be honest, Tommy is a good-looking dude. I should have known that Rachel would probably share the family’s good looks.

  “Why didn’t you show me her picture before?” I asked.

  “I tried, but I got you now,” Tommy told me. “I’ll put in a good word for you. I’m sure she already knows who you are.”

  The fact that Tommy spoke so highly of Rachel said a lot. He knew both of us and understood what I wanted most in life: a family
. He told me Rachel would make an incredible mother and described her tender and nurturing spirit. When he vouched for her character and spoke of the way she loved the Lord, I was more blown away than when I first saw her gorgeous photograph. Yes, Rachel was a total knockout, but there was so much more that drew me to her. It seemed our character, values, and the goals we were chasing in life were aligned.

  A couple of months later, Tommy made it sound like he had talked to Rachel and smoothed the way for me to message her. Certain he’d made her aware of me, I decided to send her a Facebook message. I worked hard to write a message that would have just the right tone: friendly, confident, funny, and not too desperate.

  Harold Earls IV

  Sep 13, 2012

  Rachel, from what I hear you are a pretty awesome girl! So, I figured I’d boldly and lamely introduce myself to you over Facebook. I am currently in a relationship with your cousin Tommy and he is always talking you up, so I figured I should definitely look to meet this girl he speaks so highly of.

  In hindsight, it was a really lame message. But I was trying to be funny!

  RACHEL

  I had no idea who Harold Earls IV was. My cousin Tommy hadn’t mentioned anything to me. In fact, I just assumed this Harold guy might be another distant cousin of mine I didn’t know. Our only mutual friends on Facebook were my family members (I have a pretty big extended family).

  I had always thought highly of my cousin Tommy—he’s the kind of guy who makes you a better person just by being around him. I knew if Harold was his best friend, Harold had to be a solid guy.