I confess that it felt good to get in the car with my wife and drive away for a little while. 2020 has had an inauspicious start. Last week’s tornadoes devastated our community and garnered national attention (and a presidential visit), but the tornadic metaphor—a swirling disruptive force—has characterized the past couple of months at work and in our community.
We weren’t running away, although I can sympathize with an urge to do so. Instead, we drove to Virginia to cheer on our men’s basketball team in their championship game against heavily-favored Liberty with an NCAA tournament berth on the line.
As we drove from Nashville heading east we saw what the storm left behind. We traveled through Putnam County and Cookeville, which took the brunt of the storm, and silently ached with that grieving community. But eventually, thoughts of the storm began to fade as we ventured into new territory.
We skirted the Smokies and entered southwestern Virginia, an area of the country that I had never visited. Although not spectacular, the meandering countryside and hills were charming, and I thought that they just might be spectacular when the denuded winter trees are explosions of color in autumn. We drove through Roanoke, where I tried unsuccessfully to remember why everyone has heard of Roanoke, before arriving in Lynchburg to spend the night.
Early Sunday morning I drove downtown for a run. It was 28 degrees, a fact I share just for a little sympathy, and I did a five-miler along the river and through the cobblestone streets of an historic downtown. At one point I ran up a steep downtown street, drawn toward an impressive building I later learned was called Monument Terrace. When I arrived, I continued huffing and puffing up what seemed like a million stairs, and as I climbed the name of the building became clear as I passed multiple monuments to the city’s citizens who died in wars throughout American history. At the top, I looked back on the hill I had climbed, the river, and the early morning sun.
I got to thinking.
2020 has been a hard year so far. But there have been a lot of hard years for a lot of people. Climbing that hill, climbing those stairs, seeing those monuments of lives lost reminded me of the reality of life and the universality of struggle. The lesson that occurred to me: Don’t stop climbing.
On Friday night, before leaving Nashville, we went to see talented Lipscomb students in a dance concert titled, Elevate: A Heavenly View. That’s what I thought about at the top of those crazy stairs on a frigid morning in what has been a challenging year: When times are hard—Elevate.
#NashvilleStrong
Starting to Look Up 