Inspiring email

A friend sent me an email that she sent out to her friends and family, with her permission I am posting a copy of her email on my blog:

"Hello, If you're receiving this email, it's because I wanted you to be privy to my new adventure. I want to be accountable to all of you. Some time ago, about a year to be exact, Lori Jacox told me about a 21 day cleanse. No, I don't mean you stay in the shower that long. It's an inside cleanse. The basic idea is to give up Alcohol (no problem) Caffeine (so what?),All animal products (e-yi-yi) All sugar (who do you think I am?) and gluten ( That's the limit. I have to have bread.) Each time I thought about it, I ran to the candy cupboard and after a good dose of chocolate, cut myself a slab of cheese. Well then this year Lori put out a blog for her New year's resolution (See Lori, you came back into my life for a lot of reasons. Maybe I can help you with a project someday.) She said it had to be something she was passionate about and her passion was her family and the CLEANSE--yup the 21 day one. If you look at her pictures--she's a new grandma and a beautiful woman--you can see the glow and the health and the youth in her eyes.( I have to tell you that when Lori lived by me, we used to discuss food and all the ways we could buy it, fix it, ingest it and get away with it, and had these talks while we were on a four mile walk.) So I had this hairbrain idea that I would reach my ideal weight by my birthday in April, which is 110 pounds--That's US fat measurement, not UK money. So anyway, I thought it would be good to try the Lori suggestion, but felt like it would really be a struggle for me personally. Then I happened to be watching (while eating) a documentary on BYU tv about a climb to the top of Kilimanjaro, a 19,000 ft. volcano range in western Africa.

There were seven people in the group who began the arduous climb: a tour guide, a geologist, a forty year old father and his 10 year old daughter, a single woman about 40 years old, a 12 year old African boy and a 68 year old woman. I kept my eye on the older woman. The journey began in steamy, tropical vegetation. After a couple of days of that, the landscape began to thin out and then on to tundra, then to flowers as big as cacti, that opened wide in the day to absorb light and heat and then closed tightly at night to resist the cold temperatures. The group carried all their supplies, including tents on their backs. Their hiking boots looked to weigh about 20 pounds a piece. Each night they set up camp on some ridge, ate a compact meal, and cocooned themselves for the night in a blanket and a tent. After what seemed like a week of this routine, the tour guide said there were four more days left to the summit, and those four days would be the most difficult. Seriously, they climbed up sheer rock cliffs, waded through icy streams, even scaled glaciers. They found memorials carved in rocks of people who had died from the lack of oxygen. There were many animal skeletons of foolish beasts that had gone beyond the range of food and water. The young African boy said he didn't think he could go on, but knew he couldn't turn back or stay alone. The young girl said she would go anywhere her dad went but that she was very tired and wished she could take a bath. The tour guide said he had made the climb hundreds of times and hoped to make it many more. The older lady said almost every day that she would try to make it another day The tour guide told everyone to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

After much grueling hardship--altitude sickness, exhaustion, and injuries, all seven climbers made it to the top of Kilimanjaro, which was a precarious peak overlooking a steaming volcano. I would have been leery about flying over Kilimanjaro in a helicopter.

As I turned off the tv and put my dish and spoon into the sink, I had to ask myself what would make normal people want to do this, especially a 68 year old woman, who didn't look particularly athletic or a young boy all by himself? What was their purpose? What did they have to prove? Is it necessary to make such a conquest in this life? Does God expect it? But each one of the climbers had answered the question for themselves. After the group had reached the top, each said that this was the single most difficult thing that he or she had accomplished in life and that none of them could go back to being ordinary again.

So my point. What have I ever done that was so difficult--that tested my perimeters of physical, spiritual and mental endurance? Well, right, rearing children, but we all do that and somehow survive. As I walked around the kitchen and tried to internalize what I had just witnessed, I realized that the 21 day cleanse would really be a mountain for me to climb. It would be something that took consistent effort. Every morning I would have to get out of bed and start back on the trail and not look wistfully behind me to the easy slopes I had been. It would be something that if I made it to the end, would make me stronger and more courageous about a lot of things. That if I could really make it to the end of 21 days successfully, I would never want to go back to just being ordinary.

And the reason I'm telling you all of this???? I just want your help and support. Call me and ask how I'm doing--like handing water to a mountain climber at precise points I always do better at a job when I have friends helping me. I'm no loner. I love companionship. I would say 'misery loves company, but I don't plan to be miserable. Maybe one of you would join me, and we could throw each other ropes from the upper cliffs. But if not, just cheer me on. I really love and appreciate all of you."
So in honor of my dear friend, I changed the picture on my blog to a picture of Mount Kilimanjaro. Here's to conquering the Kilimanjaro's in our lives, whatever they may be!