Perspective

Where is that damm soapbox of mine?? Ahh, there it is.

I’m healthy again.

That’s kinda a misnomer if you know anything about my past. I have wrecked my body through climbing and mtb biking in more ways then I have time to list today. And after coming off a broken foot, I have been training again to get back to climbing hard. I’ve been feeling pretty good, actually taking some good climbs again, and then a friend I work with sent me a blog link.

It was to a friend who had a liver transplant from his brother. His brother had given 60% of his liver so that my friend could live. Then his brother died…

Suddenly my stupid, petty little climbing thing didn’t seem that big a deal.

His faith really impressed me. This is a man who knows his brother died because he loved him. He was willing to pay the ultimate price to help his brother, and he did. It reminded me of a story I read often in the Bible. The one about this guy names Jesus who died for people who He didn’t know, but was still willing to pay the ultimate price for.

I am not a religious nut.

I am a man who has seen what God can do in your life when everything falls apart because God was there walking with me through every part of my accident and recovery.

I am just like every other climber I know. I am a dirtbag at heart. And I know that God made me that way for a reason.

Stories like this always put my drive in check for a moment in time; I will stop and look around at things with great clarity.

I remember laying on the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery to cut my leg off, and being able to hear the wind blow in a window down the hall, I could hear the drips in my IV, and the curtains around me moved and rubbed back and forth so loud, I could tell when someone was approaching. That clarity comes very few times in life, and I’ve learned to appreciate the calm before the storm. The one thing I know for absolute is that there will be storms, and the better I have a grasp on the fact that I have no control, the better I do.

I’ll always be driven when I climb, God made me in such a way, that when I am climbing I am happy.

But today, I’ll take one less lap on the boulder, one less lap on the trail, to be at home and spend the time with the people that really do matter.

One of the other things that being so banged up teaches you is that the things I accomplish on rocks pale in comparison to the relationship I have with God and my family.

Those things are the things I want to be remembered for.

And those are the things I think about when I’m outside doing what I love.

Craig DeMartino
outsideallday.com