Steep Climbs and Head Wind: Life beyond the bike and blessings unimaginable

Boy has it been a long time since I've taken to this blog. Part of me is conflicted about even doing so as I used to think that this page should just be reserved for a bike ride I went on once. I'm coming to realize however, that a bike ride isn't really all that I may have hoped it to be or as interesting as others tell me they imagine it to be.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that the ride from Times Square to Florence, Oregon was something much bigger than I am. It was a rite of passage of sorts, a test of my will that proved to me that you really can eat an elephant if you take it one bite at a time. Still I understood very early on that a ride like the one I did shouldn't really inflate an ego so much as humble it. Countless days I found myself worn down by hills that looked barely like any kind of incline. I grew frustrated by something as small as which patch of ground to sleep on. The ride showed me the best in me, but just as clearly, the worst I have to offer as a young man.

But when that ride concluded there on the cold sand of a foggy beach, there was no feeling of finality. For the ride perhaps, but not the adventurous life that I knew I had become indoctrinated into by it. The truth is that as I sat on that train from Portland back to Cleveland, my mind was spinning as it processed the completion of one dream and beginning of the next.

To understand that dream, I have to share with you one of the most central themes of the bike ride that you may or may not have been aware of. From the very outset, there was one rider who didn't make the journey physically but who I took with me every inch of the way.

We met in 2010 at school on a softball field during an intramural game played on a cold night in Bethany, OK. When I graduated we had been dating a year and as I stepped out into the unknown of life after college, I knew I wanted to find a way to make life be with her.

There were times when my riding companion would tell me that he was so glad he was single because of the freedom it brought, the ability to do whatever he wanted without regard for the needs of anyone else. I understood what he was saying, but never agreed. Every day I pedaled as hard as I could so that I could possibly find a McDonalds or somewhere else with wifi so I could call her. I knew that there wasn't a day of the trip that I woudn't have gladly traded him in for her, to be able to share in an adventure together. Each incredible sunset out on the plains, I wished she was there. Every steep descent as I zipped around turns and twists with the wind in my face and a smile of a child, I wished she was feeling the same with me. As I crested Togwotee Pass and saw the silhouette of that beautiful mountain range shrouded in clouds in the distance, I knew it was special, but I felt I was missing out in not having her beside me to see it together. And as I set foot in that sand I couldn't help but feel that the next destination to shoot for was wherever we could be together.

I had no idea it would take me two years to get there.

The next chapter in my journey was a true test. I youth pastored at a small church in Cleveland, OH where I fell in love with a small handful of people and teens, trying to seek out God with them each week. It proved to be a year with blessings but also trials as I'm sure all years are. In the end I couldn't handle the financial strain of paying student loans on my salary along with the emotional abuse that came from a small minority. I was afforded an opportunity to begin a one year training program in human resources with a large corporation that would instantly double my salary and allow me to be the kind of provider (or at least not a burden) that I felt she deserved for me to be. I went in excited and figured that by the end of the year we would get married and be together forever. I sometimes live in a fantasy world where I don't account for real life.

The next nine months were again a mixed bag, which is part of life, but I found myself wondering if I was really doing what I was supposed to be doing. The paycheck every other week had become my only real motivator and life as a trainee was lonely as I was relocated every few months to a new place where I didn't know anyone and everyone knew I was only going to be there for a short time anyway. Much like I had questioned whether the bike trip was worth all the other opportunities I had to give up during those months, I wondered if making money was worth not being where I wanted to be.

Our visits were few and far between. Leading into Easter I had been sent from Chicago to Detroit for a week and on Good Friday I decided to use it as a travel day but instead of returning to Chicago I made straight away for Tulsa, OK. After 14 hours of driving without tipping off that I was in a car, I arrived in Owasso, OK where she worked and booked a hotel room for the night. The next morning I got a haircut and headed to a florist to get her some flowers which I slipped under the windshield wipers of her car before hiding in my car across the parking lot at the bank she works at.

Another visit came for a friend's wedding in August. Having not been included as a groomsmen I probably wouldn't have spent the money on a plane ticket and just passed along a gift and congratulations but an excuse to see her for a few days was all I needed to justify it. Other than walking up with her to receive communion from the newlyweds, I never spoke to them but got a few days to be with my best friend.

By November we had grown tired. After an initial year away from each other I had followed it with another 9 months all so I could make enough money to think that I was okay to start a life with, but our lives had been running parallel for so long that it was difficult to see them ever intersecting again. The weekend of my birthday (November 17th) she came up for a visit to spend it with me. We explored Chicago the first day, drove to Niagara Falls the second day and then on to my parents' house after a pit stop for a surprise dinner with one of her best friends along the way, and finally back to Kalamazoo, MI for a dinner at my apartment, limo ride to Grand Rapids, and Melting Pot for dessert. On Monday I took her back to Chicago for her flight back home but I wished more than ever that she wouldn't get on the plane or that I could get on it with her.

On the way back from Chicago to Kalamazoo I got a phone call for a job offer. It was a temporary position that paid less and offered no benefits, but it sounded perfect because it was in Tulsa. I accepted on the spot and the next day I was on a conference call to resign to my boss at corporate headquarters. I spent the rest of the week packing up my apartment and on Friday my mom and sister picked me up and took me back to Bedford where I loaded up my rusty car with whatever I could and headed to Collinsville, OK where I got in at 3am after stopping at Walmart to get the best flowers I could find at that hour.

I've been living in Oklahoma for a month now and as I reflect on this year I can safely say that 2013 was a pivotal one for me. I learned a lot about myself, the shortcomings of being a person trying to make it in this world, but the blessings in giving over those failings and being happy in God. I don't have a lot of money. I drive a rusty car that's just under 200,000 miles on it. I have more student loan debt than I know what to do with and I have no idea what I'm good enough at to do for the rest of my life.

And I've never been happier. I have the love of a woman who makes the bad days bearable, the good days great, and the great days incredible. And so although I know a huge hill stands in front of me, and probably a long stretch of plains with insane head wind, this time I have her beside me and that makes all the difference.

I pray God blesses your lives in ways unimaginable this year. Make 2014 be a year lived boldly for others and let them pour love back in to you.

Blessings,
Matt