A Higher Calling Read online

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  RACHEL

  That’s a pretty gutsy response after spending not even a full twenty-four hours with a girl, but earlier he’d made an even gutsier move. I have a little diamond ring my grandmother gave me that I wore on my right hand. A couple of hours earlier, Harold switched it over to my ring finger on my left hand.

  “I like the way that looks,” he told me.

  Perhaps it was because it looked like I was wearing an engagement ring, or maybe it was the way in which Harold was affectionately gazing at me that drew the comment from the stranger. Either way, the remark made us smile. It affirmed the strength of our connection in a very powerful way.

  After Harold left, I took a screenshot of the time and date he’d called me just before he walked in to surprise me. I knew in my heart this was a pivotal moment in my life, so I wanted to document everything.

  My life is about to change, I thought. He’s military and he plays baseball. Neither was overly appealing to me, but I did enjoy seeing Harold in both uniforms. I fully appreciated and had the utmost respect for our military, but it wasn’t necessarily the life I wanted for my own family. I knew I was in this relationship for the long haul, so I was facing the reality that it would require a lot of sacrifice on my end.

  It’s impossible to have commitment without sacrifice; both are required in a strong relationship. Sometimes the sacrifices are small, and sometimes they are life altering. I knew this was going to be a life-altering sacrifice, but I also knew that what I was gaining was much greater. I wanted a life with Harold, which meant any sacrifice would be worth it.

  Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the kinds of sacrifices a life together would mean for us.

  April 16, 2016

  Though I can’t see the mountain in the dark of night on the Tibetan Plateau, I still feel it shadowing over me in the distance. I downplay my fears and nerves when I talk with Rachel. I tell her things like “It’s not too scary” and “It’s really pretty” and “I’m not too worried about it.” These are half truths. In reality, this towering beast in the background is the meanest, blackest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m worried, and I’m humbled. I could share this with her, my best friend and biggest supporter. But I want to protect her from the knot in my stomach, the nerves constantly rumbling inside, and the nagging questions: What am I doing? and What have I left behind?

  Have you ever come to a point in your life when the one thing you’ve been working toward suddenly seems insurmountable? A moment when your own personal Everest (be it creating a business, parenting, etc.) stares you down, looking bigger and scarier than you ever could have imagined? A time when you feel intimidated and alone? A time in which you suddenly begin to question everything? That’s what I’m doing in China, asking over and over again, Have I bitten off more than I can chew? I know life sometimes presents moments that feel impossible. But I also know when you overcome these challenges, you come out stronger. I just hope I’m up to the task.

  As we continue our trek to Everest’s Base Camp, the mountain looms in the distance, growing larger with every step I take.

  3

  “We’re All a Little Weird.

  And Life Is a Little Weird.”

  RACHEL

  It was 3:15 a.m., and we’d just finished video chatting. When I got in bed, I grabbed my journal off my nightstand and wrote two notes, the first one to God and the second one to Harold.

  Hey, God!

  Gosh, You are working in my life in some crazy ways. First, I want to stop and thank You. Thank You for loving me as Your child! I am in love with You, and now I have found a man whose heart matches Yours. God, tonight I realized that I love him! I want to make sure we always keep You at the center of our relationship. God, I pray that You guide him in his decision-making and align his goals and aspirations with Your plan for his life! May Your will be done in our relationship, and may we follow You, growing closer together as we fall more and more in love with You. I love You so much, God, it fills my heart with joy. Help me find more ways to serve You and listen to You easier!

  So in love, Rach

  Dear Harold,

  Tonight, I realized that I am in love with you! The first night of Beach Retreat when we were talking on the phone about the future, my heart was overwhelmed, and to be honest, I was a little scared. Then on Oct 18 @ 1:11, I wrote down in my phone that I loved you, two days before I even met you in person, but still I was scared to admit it because it was all so fast! That night I felt all kinds of emotions, and I knew I never wanted to let you go! Tonight, I am not doubting anymore; it may not have been a moment we were physically together, but it was the moment I fell in love with your heart! There are so many things I love about you, but I realized that I love you because I love who God is in you. I feel closer to God and more in love with Him when I am with you. This is the kind of love that I want. This is real. Harold, I love you! I want to spend the rest of our lives together falling more in love with each other as we fall more in love with God. Forever and always.

  Love, Rach

  This verse was printed at the bottom of my journal page: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father” (James 1:17). It made me smile as I read it, knowing that Harold and our love were gifts from God.

  During the Thanksgiving holiday, a month after Harold moved my grandmother’s ring to my left ring finger, he met my parents for the first time. He walked straight up to my mother, who is five foot eleven, and said, “Wow, you really are tall. That’s good genes for our kids.” He’s a bold one all right, and he wasn’t shy about how he felt about me!

  We were at my family’s cabin in North Carolina, and I decided to tell Harold I loved him that night by reading him the letter I’d written in my journal. I’d been waiting for this moment. As I began to read what I wrote, my eyes welled up with tears that dripped onto the page. My voice shook with emotion. As soon as Harold realized what I was doing, he interrupted me and told me that he loved me. He put his arms around me and pulled me in close, and we both cried happy tears.

  To this day, we still debate over who said it first. One time Harold told me he loved me during a video chat, but he said it in Arabic, so it didn’t really count. I usually win the debate in the end, since I was the first one to say it in English. I’d used Google Translate to figure out what he said, though, so I knew he was feeling the same way. He had told me he had made a vow that he was only going to say “I love you” to the person he was planning to marry, and I knew he had never said those three words to anyone else before.

  HAROLD

  There were so many little things that made me fall in love with Rachel. Like the way she said my name, the cute freckle on her lip, her utter lack of a sense of direction, and her contagious smile. The greatest feeling was being able to act super silly around each other. We could be ourselves and know we wouldn’t judge but only love each other more for our weirdness. In his book True Love, Robert Fulghum said, “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love.”* This is the perfect way to describe our relationship, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

  Unfortunately, during the first month Rachel and I were officially dating, my parents announced they were getting a divorce. I had an amazing childhood growing up, with a loving father and mother and a younger sister, but this traumatic event left me not knowing what a good marriage looked like. I spent a lot of time processing, questioning, and reflecting with Rachel. Seeing my family crumble left a lasting impression on me, and it strengthened my commitment to Rachel. We pledged to put each other first always. I’d seen firsthand how my parents placed their kids and work before their marriage, and though they were the greatest
parents on earth, they sacrificed their marriage in the process of raising their family.

  I remember Tommy’s mom, Meredith, telling Rachel and me that the greatest gift a couple can give their kids is to show them what a loving relationship looks like. A loving relationship is making time for each other, holding hands, and kissing in public. It’s telling and showing Rachel how much I love her. It’s love-tapping Rachel’s bum when she is cooking in the kitchen. It’s slow dancing in the living room after a hard day. It’s smearing brownie batter on her face and chasing her around the house, giggling.

  A loving relationship is also apologizing when we react in anger, frustration, or fear. It’s working through challenges as a team. It’s encouraging each other’s faith. It’s showing gentleness, understanding, and compassion in times of stress. We wanted to do all this not just with each other but also intentionally in front of our future kids. We made a promise to always nurture our relationship, and I intended to keep it.

  For our one-year dating anniversary, we spent the weekend at a family beach house. Rather than doing what normal couples do, like rubbing tanning lotion on each other’s backs, swimming, and taking romantic walks on the beach, we found some burned pieces of charcoal lying on the beach and drew tribal designs on our faces. We stuck some bushy branches and seashells in our hair and then danced on the beach for the next hour.

  Now that I am telling this story, it sounds a little odd, but it showed that I could let my guard down with her. If a relationship is going to be sustainable through marriage, it’s important to be comfortable being fully yourself around each other. It helps if you actually enjoy hanging out, which may seem obvious. We didn’t need distractions like television or our phones to fill our time together; we were fully focused on each other, and we could never get enough.

  For our first Valentine’s Day, I took the children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon and rewrote it to tell our story just three months after we shared those first “I love yous.” I drew over the pictures with a black Sharpie and cut out tiny pieces of paper to tape over the original words. I detailed how we met and went on to tell of us getting married and having lots of babies and grandkids, all while walking with Jesus to accomplish great things in life.

  RACHEL

  It was the most thoughtful, unique, and creative gift I’ve ever been given. We were both so confident and comfortable with each other that writing about getting married and having kids together, only months after meeting and after seeing each other in person maybe four times, was somehow romantic instead of completely presumptuous and creepy.

  Dating long distance forced us to work a little harder and a little more creatively to make our love known when we weren’t together in person. We went above and beyond for each other not because we had to but because we wanted to. This intentionality helped us lay a strong foundation as we learned early on that love is a choice that requires action.

  One such effort occurred when I flew up to see Harold the evening before the Army-Navy baseball games on April 1, 2013. This was the first and only time I had any real doubt in our relationship. The doubt wasn’t because of us but because of fear that his family didn’t like me, specifically his sister, Liz.

  She was really struggling with their parents’ divorce and had started to feel like she was losing her brother, too, because he and I were in such a serious relationship. I knew how important family was to Harold, and I didn’t want to cause a rift between them. It broke me. When you love someone, you want the best for them, so I doubted my place with Harold if his sister didn’t like me.

  Instead of ignoring the issue, Harold and I stayed up all night talking and crying our hearts out on the eve of one of the most important games of his life. That single night could have torn us apart, but instead, communication saved us. We recommitted to deepening our relationship and working through such doubts together. My relationship with his sister got better, by the way, and it’s great now.

  I learned through that turmoil that I needed to acknowledge my unreasonable expectation of perfection, for myself and others. In relationships, it’s important to extend grace and let go of unrealistic expectations. I’ll be the first to admit that at times I put too much pressure on people, including myself, to be perfect. The truth is, that’s a pressure we aren’t designed to bear. Relationships require understanding.

  HAROLD

  We lost both games of the doubleheader the next day. In fact, I went 0 for 7 at the plate. But it was worth it because I didn’t lose Rachel. We were tested, and it almost broke us. We intentionally took the time to communicate and align our priorities. We bent, but we didn’t break. Holding Rachel after that loss, I didn’t feel like I had really lost anything at all.

  My relationship with Rachel was teaching me about effective communication. I had a lot to learn, especially about how I was communicating with God, which is the simplest yet hardest thing to do. Why is that? Short answer: If I struggle at actively communicating with Rachel, Soldiers on a military mission, or even getting my dog to sit for a treat, all of whom can talk (or bark) back, then how will I be good at communicating with Someone I can’t see or hear?

  Combine that with how the cultural norm for communication demands instantaneous responses. When I am texting someone about a problem, I can see when my message is delivered and read, and I can even see little bubbles when that person is responding. I think we often wish the same tracking system could be used with God. We want…we expect…no, we demand, actually, to see “read” beneath the 11:54 a.m. note, followed by an instant reply from God with direction on how to solve our problem. But God doesn’t work this way, and since we can’t see Him, it can feel like no one is listening on the other end. It’s like a kid who is talking on an old telephone with a cord attached to it, but the cord has been cut and is dangling at his feet.

  To be honest, a few years back, I seriously questioned whether God communicated with us at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in Him; I just never heard Him speak to me. I would pray but hear no response. I would go to church but not feel Him working in my life. All too often, I felt like that kid with the dangling cord. I was skeptical then, but I can attest today that I am living proof God does respond. While it may not be in the typical way we receive responses from our friends, God speaks to us. We just need to listen in the right way to hear Him.

  * Robert Fulghum, True Love: Stories Told to and by Robert Fulghum (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 115.

  April 19, 2016

  The “death zone” is the part of Everest above 26,247 feet. Everyone must enter the zone to reach the summit, roughly 3,000 feet higher. Basically, you are dying while you are up that high. Nothing is working as it should, and that’s a tremendous strain on anyone’s body, no matter how old or what kind of shape you’re in. The lack of oxygen is simply killing you. No one can stay in the death zone for long—ideally, no more than one night.

  Add an accident or moment of poor judgment, and it can easily mean the end, whether it involves you or someone else. Many have died trying to help their friends, teammates, or even complete strangers. There’s an unwritten code that if you get into trouble in the death zone, you can’t expect others to successfully help you, because it’s extremely dangerous (and virtually impossible) to attempt a rescue at that altitude. It’s likely you’ll be left to die a lonely death.

  Despite that unwritten code, everybody on our team has decided we will do everything in our power to help one another get down the mountain or attempt a rescue if needed. Our climbing team, called USX (US Expeditions and Explorations), is part of a bigger Western guide service called Summit Climb, and it includes sixteen people from all across the US and Europe. Our team includes Dr. Dave Ohlson, our team doctor and cinematographer from Anchorage, Alaska, and Staff Sergeant Chad Jukes (ret.) from Colorado, who is a combat-wounded amputee looking to be the first combat-wounded veteran to summit
Everest. He lost his leg to an IED in Iraq. Both men are renowned climbers. The rest of the team come primarily from across the Midwest.

  Dave gives us a small bottle of adrenaline and a needle. We are to tape them to our left inside chest pocket so we all know where to find them on each climber. Our body heat keeps it from freezing. We have two doses to use only in extreme situations, such as if one of us snaps a leg and has to rappel down one of the several cliff faces near the summit. Each shot lasts ten minutes. Dave says it makes you feel like Superman and then you crash hard. We have steroids and other essential medications strapped to us as well. Climbers even take Viagra because it improves blood flow and promotes oxygenation, which makes it easier to breathe.

  After seeing this intimidating mountain, I can’t help but think about the real possibility of dying. Tommy and I talk about this, and while we mostly joke about it, at one point I become serious.

  “Hey, man. If anything happens, make sure you take care of Rachel. If Rachel is pregnant, I want you to be the godfather.”

  I say this in a half-joking way, but we both know the gravity of my words. I’ve already talked to my sister and “jokingly” left her in charge of my funeral if I don’t make it back. Before leaving, I increased my Army life insurance, maxing it out at $400,000.

  Staring at Everest, I’m actually glad to have done all those things. I still plan to record an “in case I don’t come home” message for Rachel up on the mountain—a message I hope and pray she’ll never have to listen to.