Learning to Climb With Love

For most of my life, I believed Heaven waited at the top.

At the finish line.

At the achievement.

At the moment where effort finally paid off.

I didn’t know I believed this — it was simply how I moved through the world, even with my Heaven experience as a child.

Then came a climb that changed everything.

That climb I write about in Heaven Is in the How as well.

The Climb That Looked Familiar — But Wasn’t

I was standing at the base of an obstacle I knew well.

I’d climbed it before in my military years.

No harness.

No partner.

Just grit, adrenaline, and willpower.

Back then, success meant finishing — even if it cost connection.

But this time, it was different.

This was a leadership event.

And I was tied to a partner.

A rope connected us.

As I looked up, something quiet and unmistakable surfaced inside me — not instruction, not pressure, just a question:

“How are you going to show up this time?”

Not:

Can you do it?

Not:

Will you win?

But:

Who will you be in the process?

At the time, I didn’t have language for what was happening.

I hadn’t yet connected this moment to Heaven, or Eden, or divine rhythm.

I only knew I had a choice.

Two Ways to Climb

I could climb the way I always had:

bark orders

muscle through

finish no matter what

let connection become collateral damage

Or I could do something unfamiliar.

I could commit — fully — to my partner.

Not just finishing near each other.

But finishing together.

As I stood there, something began to dissolve. Learned patterns and beliefs started to be released.

All the internal calculations I’d used in life:

As long as one of us succeeds, it counts

I’ll go ahead — they’ll catch up

It’s safer if I carry this myself

Those thoughts didn’t get argued with.

They simply… died.

And I’m grateful they did.

What I Didn’t Know Yet

At the time I wrote The River, I told this story as a lesson in partnership.

In trust.

In love.

And that was true.

A year later — long after the book was written — something else surfaced.

A remembering.

I realized I hadn’t felt Heaven at the top of that climb.

I felt Heaven during it.

In the pauses.

In the communication.

In the mutual awareness.

In choosing presence over performance.

That’s when the sentence finally formed in me:

Heaven isn’t in the destination.

Heaven is in the how.

Not in finishing.

Not in accomplishing.

But in who we are while we walk.

When the How Becomes Holy

As we climbed, something shifted in my body.

My breath stayed steady.

My movements became attuned rather than forceful.

My attention stayed relational, not competitive.

We weren’t rushing toward an outcome.

We were moving with each other.

And the result?

The climb became beautiful — not just successful.

Others watching noticed it too.

There was ease where there should have been strain.

Flow where there should have been friction.

Not because we tried harder —

but because we were aligned.

Heaven’s Physiology Is Partnership

Looking back, I can see how this moment foreshadowed everything that followed:

marriage restored through connection, not control

fatherhood rooted in presence, not pressure

leadership grounded in trust, not hierarchy

faith expressed through relationship, not performance

God wants to partner with us — not because He needs help, but because love requires freedom and communion.

The miraculous doesn’t happen because we achieve the objective.

It happens because we choose to walk together.

That day, without realizing it, my body learned a truth my spirit would name later:

Abundance isn’t something you reach.

It’s something you walk in.

And you don’t walk in it alone.

Infinite love and blessings,

Nicholas