The cover of this month’s National Geographic shows a man standing on the side of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park, on a ledge (aptly named the “Thank God Ledge” barely wider than the length of his boots.  The man is wearing no harness, no ropes.  Nothing but his climbing boots and a bag of chalk assist him in this 2,130 foot climb.

Part of a bold new generation of climbers, he is fixated on doing things no one has done before.  A new route.  A new speed record.  An old route, done in a new way.  That day, his fixation is an old route done a new way: without a rope.

Though he’s made this very climb just the day before with the rope, doubt can still creep in.  And doubt, in a situation like this, can be a life-or-death matter.

In the sport of free soloing, which means climbing with only a powdery chalk bag and rock shoes—no rope, no gear, nothing to keep you stuck to the stone but your own belief and ability—doubt is dangerous.  If Honnold’s fingertips cant hold, or if he merely believes his fingertips can’t hold, he will fall to his death.  Now, the spell suddenly broken by mental fatigue and the glass-slick slab in front of him, he’s paralyzed.

“My foot will never stay on that,” Honnold says to himself, staring at a greasy bump on the rock face.  ‘Oh God, I’m screwed'” (May 2011, pg 102).

I know this feeling, in my own small, standing-firmly-on-the-ground kind of way.  That heart-pounding feeling of looking up and thinking, “What was I thinking?  There is no way I can accomplish this”  There is a huge climb ahead of me, and we’ve already established I’ve got a thing about ledges.  So what am I doing here, attempting this climb?

When this happens, when doubt begins to creep in and threaten to paralyze, I must do two things.  First, I must silence that voice—shut it up, turn it off, drive it away, tune it out.  I cannot listen, or I will find myself half-way up a rock ledge powerless to go neither up nor down, unable to move.  Which is, if I’m to get off this rock alive, what needs to happen next.

Now, clinging to the granite, Honnold vacillates, delicately chalking one hand, then the other, vigilantly adjusting his feet on invisibly small footholds.  Then abruptly he’s in motion again, stepping up, smearing his shoe on the slick knob.  It sticks.  He moves his hand to another hold, crimping his fingers on the tiny edge.  Within minutes he’s at the top.

“I rallied because there was nothing else I could do,” Honnold tells me later, releasing boyish laugh.  “I stepped up and trusted that terrible foot hold and was freed of the little prison where I’d stood silently for five minutes” (pg.120).

This climb consists of little, tiny ledges and footholds that don’t appear to be able to support me in my ascent.  But if I don’t “step up,” if I don’t trust, I will be trapped in this “little prison” indefinitely, and I’m not okay with that.

When one believes in a God “who is able to do exceedingly more than you can ever ask or imagine,” one would think this step of trust would be easy.  But when both the way up and the way back down look impossible, it truly is a complete, all-out leap of faith that gets you there.  I am getting better at this, slowly but surely, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still scared.  Something new is being forged within me, however, and I’m eager to see what it will look like a month, a year, a decade from now.

The author of the Yosemite article closes with reflecting on his last night in the valley, as he watches three young women return from a three-day ascent, bloody-knuckled and emotionally spent.  He concludes:

Like those who made the pilgrimage before them and those who will follow, they’re come to Yosemite to test themselves against the rock.  They know that these walls are more than mountains: They’re giant mirrors that unsparingly reflect what lies within each climber (pg. 116).

It is my prayer that the mirror of pursuing publication will reflect a growing life of faith—in myself, in what I have to say, in the God who has put on my heart both the desire and call to say it.

And if that growing ability to trust and obey is the only thing that comes out of this quest, that alone will be enough to proclaim it a successful climb.