A Reflection on Mount Saint Helens
#1 in the Salvaged Stories Series
I am taking this time away from the cottage to sort through the hundreds—probably thousands—of pages of processing I did during my ten years of healing. Not all need to be saved since I am not in those dark places any longer. But, mixed in with the processing are stories worth salvaging. This piece was written in 2017 and was originally included in Brave: Healing Childhood Trauma but was removed during the editing process. I always have way more material than one book can contain! I was reminded of it on this, the 45th anniversary of the year that Mount Saint Helens erupted.
Flying out of Seattle on a cloudy day, all I could see were the tops of the mountains. I knew the city, rivers, and Puget Sound were underneath the cloud bank, but the only visible evidence that I was flying south from Seattle was the floating aberration—Mt. Rainier. I was living at the foot of Pikes Peak but Mt. Rainier was my most beloved mountain. Its glacier shell gave the illusion of a winter day no matter the season, but with a layer of snow it was truly glorious. How exquisitely it hid the danger underneath—the fact that it was a live volcano was something I tried not to consider since all my children and grandchildren lived underneath its shadow. I preferred to be as delighted as a child when we rounded a corner and came face to face with the mountain’s amazing presence.
Lost in thought in my carefully chosen window seat, I thought about my journey over the past two years. Non-sequential memories galloped through my brain as I tried to make sense of all that had occurred in such a short time. Children had moved, I had retired, my dad turned 100 and had to be moved into a home, my husband and I bought a fifth-wheel and were finishing our first winter as full-time residents in an RV Park near Garden of the Gods, while I traveled—a lot. It had been an overwhelming two years in any life, but as I looked across the cloud bank, I realized that all of these events were only the part that everyone saw underneath the clouds. The real mountain that I had climbed was hidden from view and floated somewhere in the heavens.
As we flew down the coast towards Oakland, I spotted Mount Saint Helens. I had never seen it from the sky. I could clearly see where half of the mountain had been blown away. I shuddered. That was what could have happened to me if God had not so clearly sent me for the therapy that I had needed since I was a small child. For a year and a half, I had been releasing the well of pain inside of me that could have exploded my life. I managed to find my way to healing hidden from view on the mountain of God’s design.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2
This is my story of how God brought me the help for which I had always longed. It is also the story of how God used the healing skill of a therapist to hold me while I reeled through years of therapy in a year and a half. And it is the story of how a husband who said he would stand beside me in sickness and health proved that his promise was more than just words in a wedding ceremony.
You were so brave to climb that mountain!