The Weight of the Climb

A Letter from the Road

Liturgical Season: The Approach of Great Lent

I. The Struggle of Skillful Living

Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

It is no easy thing to do what is good for me. To reach for the very skills that would steady my hands, clear the fog, and set my feet upon the middle path—the one that leads me back to God. Especially when the shadows of sorrow settle in, when my heart is heavy with grief and weariness, when anger hisses, “To heck with skills.”

But here I am, speaking these words into the open air as I drive down a familiar road—the road to my therapist, to Sarah, to a place where maybe, just maybe, I will remember how to breathe again.

II. The Weight of Old Words

Why am I feeling like this? If you were to ask me, I would say—relationships. Interpersonal struggles have haunted me my whole life, twisting themselves into the roots of my being. I hear a familiar voice even now: “You are the common denominator.” I was told this often in my childhood. At thirty-eight, I still carry the weight of that sentence. I still wonder if I am the reason things unravel, if every falling bridge is one I set aflame.

Just recently, another fracture—a dear friend, almost a sister. A rift, a moment of standing up for myself, and now, I cannot tell—Was I skillful, or was I cruel? Was I strong, or was I selfish? Did I use my DBT skills with grace, or did I simply mask my fear with defiance?

And so the voice returns: “Was it me?” I do not know. But I know this— God knows me. He knows this wretched machine I am trying to drive. And drive it I must, if I want to keep moving forward, if I want to live.

III. The Weariness of Being

Does this life seem hard to live to you? Because to me, it is. I am tired of trying to maintain normalcy, tired of chasing a structure that won’t stay, tired of pressing my hands into the clay of my habits, only to watch them crumble, misshapen, before they set. I try. I really do. And yet, I hear myself whispering in the dark: “Oh God, I wasn’t made for this life. Why did You make me?” I fail at everything.

Well—perhaps not everything. I finished school, earned my degrees, taught in classrooms, married a good godly man, brought children into this world. Some might say I am successful. But inside, I am restless. Not because I have done too little, but because I have yet to become the woman I long to be. I grieve not who I am, but who I have not yet become.

IV. The Sadness of Becoming

Isn’t it strange? To feel sorrow, not for what has been lost, but for what has not yet arrived? To ache because I am not yet like Christ, not yet the whole, steady, radiant soul I was meant to be? It is almost foolish, isn’t it? As if I am mourning the unfinished painting, as if I am grieving the seed for not yet being a tree. Am I longing for the end of the journey? Am I, in some way, wishing I were already at the destination? But life is not about the arrival. It is about the climb. A song once said that, though I dare not quote it without cringing.

And yet—Christ Himself told us, “In this world, you will have trouble.” He did not leave us stranded in that truth. He left us His Word, His Church, the rhythms and traditions that steady us when the ground is unsteady beneath our feet. Oh, how grateful I am for them.

V. The Grace of Another’s Wisdom

Today, grace found me through Sarah. She helped me see how this wound—this fracture—might have been avoided if I had been skillful. If I had held my words more carefully, if I had let wisdom shape my response instead of my woundedness.

And so we return to where we began: How hard it is to be skillful, dear pilgrim. But skillful we must be. For skill is not just strategy—it is an act of love. It is a choice to walk in the way of peace, to choose clarity over chaos, to meet the storm with stillness. Hard as it may be, it is the only road forward.

VI. Final Thoughts

I thought skills were useless in sorrow. But now I see—they are bridges out of it. I thought life was unbearable because I have not yet arrived. But now I remember—life is found in the journey. I thought I was failing. But now I know—I am simply becoming. And I am not alone. Neither are you.

Closing Prayer

O Christ, who walked the harder road, who bore the weight of human frailty without despair, teach me to be skillful in love, patient in struggle, gentle with myself as You are gentle with me. Let me not mourn the unfinished work, but rejoice in the shaping of it. For You are here, in the in-between, in the climb, in the slow, aching, holy work of becoming. Hold me as I walk, and do not let me fall. Amen.

Have you ever mourned the person you have not yet become? How do you remind yourself that growth is a journey, not an instant arrival?