Facing my fears on the mountain
As a counselor-in-training, or CIT, at a summer camp for Christian Scientists, I worked in a mountaineering program. One of the hardest activities we did with campers was peaking mountains—in other words, hiking to the top of a 14,000-foot mountain.
As a camper, I’d always been nervous about our backpacking trips because peaking mountains is very difficult. But as a staff member, I wanted to overcome those fears so I could be there for my campers and even help them with their own fears. My first thought about how to approach this was to pray.
As I prayed, a line from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal came to me. The hymn is from a poem written by Mary Baker Eddy, and the line that came to thought was, “O make me glad for every scalding tear” (Poems, p. 4).
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