Mountain Top Moments and Carpet Cleaning in the Valleys

Last weekend, Easter weekend, I had the privilege of helping my home congregation with Leadership Training for Christ. It is a weekend full of kids preparing, performing, and studying God’s word and learning about serving in the church. They are judged on things like bible reading, bible bowl, chorus, puppet skits, drama and song leading.  

My oldest participating in Bible Bowl

I was caught off guard in all honestly when I was headed to our car on the first night. I walked through the large atrium at the Anatole Hotel, where the convention was held, and it was filled with the sound of young voices lifted up to God in praise and beautiful four-part harmony. The sound grew as more and more young voices joined in and I had legitimate goosebumps and my eyes teared up. It was such a happy and familiar sound that one, it was impossible to ignore that God was being glorified and two, reminded me so much of my upbringing in the church and my personal mountain top moments when I felt so close to God and like I was on the right path where I needed to be. 

Mountaintop moments are when you are so full of hope and enthusiasm, when it’s impossible to deny that God is with you, loves you, has a plan for you and you’re right where you need to be. Often, I have experienced these moments in the quiet of nature.  

As a church going youth, I had a few “mountaintop” experiences growing up. I can remember Ponderosa Christian Camp just about as well as I can remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Settled in the mountains of New Mexico and covered in Pine trees, our sanctuary was a collection cabins full of daddy long legs and camp laundry and friendships. I don’t know if they were ponderosa pines, but their bark looked like puzzle pieces and smelled a little like vanilla. I can remember the sound of worship songs filling the mountain air, my counselor who was baptized in deepest part of the clear creek and the crisp, new notebook and pencil I carried with me to bible class.  

I can feel the moonlight on my face during our moonlight hike and the dusty mountain dirt in the socks of my shoes. It was a wonderful experience I’m still grateful for decades later. It was an opportunity to learn about God and His word in the still and peace of a mountain retreat. In between canteen breaks and dishwasher duty we fit in a lot of praise and worship and learned a lot. It was unforgettable.  

I also offered my grandma a Now n’ Later candy from the canteen on the drive home and it pulled out one of her crowns. I can still remember her showing it to me, stuck to the candy. That ripped me off that figurative mountain top and threw me back in to reality real quick.  

I can remember the joy and enthusiasm I felt while singing with youth group or the emotional high I got when enjoying the fellowship of other God following women at a women’s retreat.  

I think, occasionally we need these moments. They are refreshing and remind us of who God is and chase away our fears, our doubts, and our hopeless thoughts.  

Unfortunately, not every day can be a mountaintop moment. If they all were, they wouldn’t be special and stand out. After last weekend I began to ask the question, what do you do when you’re in a cycle of regular, boring, valley moments? What do you do when you’re living out the seemingly monotonous day to day of real life? Better still, what if your day to day is not so monotonous? What if you’re going through something stressful? What if you’re having a rough day?  

I have to say that I often find myself stuck and asking, what’s the point? It’s hard to remember that I’m part of God’s plan when I’m doing any of the less glamorous household tasks before me. It’s much less apparent when dealing with the logistics of handling several different personalities in the same household.  

This evening, I asked my oldest to finish loading the dishwasher before he headed to bed. After I put the youngest to bed, I came back to the kitchen to find that he’d let some food go down the wrong side of the sink which clogged it, then set a bunch of dirty dishes on top of it. I just spent way too much time tonight pulling slimy, disgusting spaghetti noodles out of dirty sink water and unclogging a drain. I can’t say that Ponderosa Christian Camp was at the forefront of my mind.  

The other night, at 3:12 AM, my oldest dog who is now eleven years old, decided that his evening meal did not agree with him and proceeded to not only poop all over my bedroom floor but also puke before going out the back door when I tried to let him out. When I was cleaning still warm, loose, dog stool out of the grainy fibers of my bedroom carpet in the wee hours of the morning while my husband literally snored, still asleep, I did not think of the wonderful Godly Wife behaviors I’d reinforced or the warm fellowship I felt at that women’s retreat.  

Ty, the elderly, sometimes incontinent dog

Mountain top moments are wonderful. We crave them. I think it’s very important to take those refreshing breaks, they’re good for our souls and remind us of our purpose. Those moments lift us up and propel us forward.  

They are, however, mostly strung together by everyday life and sometimes everyday life doesn’t look like LTC weekend or that great couples retreat you went on or that women’s conference that lifted you up.  

So, what do we do in the hum drum?  

I have one answer that I’ve learned with all my heart. Do the hum drum and do it well. In my home, God has entrusted me with the care of a husband and four children not to mention the dogs and chickens. This is an immense blessing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Would I opt out of cleaning up dog vomit if given the option? Absolutely. The dog mess, the annoying spats my kids engage in, the snoring husband, the dirty dishes, the slimy strand of spaghetti noodles are small things. The Bible tells us that if we can be trusted with small things, then God can trust us with big things. So, we handle the little things, the less desirable things, the non-mountain-top-down-in-the-valley moments with care and diligence.  

I’m not saying we love it, but we do it well. How do you think that Proverbs 31 woman did all those great things? One day at a time, one good decision after another, one hum-drum thing after another done well that accumulated into a life well lived and a family well served, and a God glorified.  

As wives and mothers it may seem like those little things aren't’ that important and truly, some of the small stuff we really shouldn’t dwell on but the accumulation of those hard fought moments when you’d rather be on the side of a mountain singing praise songs instead of changing a diaper or folding underwear, they matter because they’re part of a whole. The whole blesses your family and that’s exactly the task God gave you. Get through it, laugh about it and do it well. Heck, write an angry blog about it, but get in there and serve. Breathe in deep and soak up those mountain tops, but don’t forget to put in the work in the valleys.  

So, as I’m thinking of ways to bless my family in the humdrum, I thought of how I recently incorporated making bread several times a week. Don’t get all worked up, it’s not hard or time consuming and I don’t get up at 4 in the morning to start. If you want to picture me in an apron before the sun comes up in full make up kneading bread, knock yourself out. That’s not how it goes but, it means a lot to my family when I make it.

Every day, hum drum bread

Bread: 

2 cups water

3/8 cups sugar 

1/8 cup yeast 

Dissolve sugar in warm water, stir in yeast, let prove for 5-6 minutes. 

5 ½ cups flour 

1 tsp salt 

Stir water mixture into 2 cups of flour and salt until combined. Add remaining flour until dough forms. Hand knead for 5 minutes or cheat and use your dough hook in your stand mixer for 5-6 minutes.  

Place in an oiled bowl to rise for 45 minutes to an hour until it more than doubles in size.  

Half the dough and spread each half out to a rectangle then roll into a loaf. Place both halves in a greased 9x13 pan or on a baking sheet. Make 3-4 diagonal slices in the top of each loaf for even rising.  

Let the dough rise again for 45 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray loaves with olive oil or brush with butter and cook for 18 minutes. Set them on a rack out of the pan to cool so they don’t sit in their own steam as they cool and get gummy.  

*The best time in my day to do this is to start the dough while I’m making breakfast. It rises while I get everyone fed and pointed in the right direction. I then take a short break to shape the loaves. Do another task for 45 minutes and then come back to bake it. With a little planning, it’s very easy to work this into your day.