Down In the Valley...Sweet & Smelly

Floods, standing water, bugs, excessively loud bullfrogs, water, bugs, mud, and bugs.

The rainy season at our new home in Tamale, Ghana introduced unexpected features. Our house sits within a small valley and we are adjusting to the new environment. My friends are just a few hundred meters away and do not deal with our temporary wetland habitat.

“Mountaintop experiences are great, but growth happens in the valley.”

Yeah. That guy forgot to mention that growth is not always green meadows but mud, bugs, water, bugs, and more bugs. Sadly—it’s true. Growth happens in the valley AND it is messy, muddy, and buggy.

Friendship in every culture carries the idea of sharing difficult moments together. “Easy,” “light,” and “social” friendship are just for the easy moments and conversations, but real friends are expected to go through the yucky stuff of life with each other.

Think about some messes where you wanted a good friend—or a good friend wanted you to show up.

• Dating, marriage, divorce

• Birth of children, teenagers, kids having kids, teenagers,

• New job, trouble at work, annoying coworker, a cruel boss

• Moral failing, spiritual dryness, faith & spiritual doubt

• Identity in family, aging parents, death of parent

• More….

When we travel the valley with another person good things happen.

• Fears subside

• Someone helps us up when we fall in the mud

• We share the misery of bugs and waterlogged boots together

• We notice beauty in the natural processes of life

• Our identity as a man is affirmed by another man

• …and so much more…

I might need another rainy season and a better road to my house to fully appreciate life in my muddy valley. But I know it is the place where my family will grow, the cows and sheep will eat during the dry season, and the chief’s horse will come and graze clanking the bell around his neck.

I’ll just have an extra helping of bugs to go with all that growth.

Friends walk the valleys of life together.