Detour Through the Mountains and Photography

by Alisha Roth

photograph by Alisha Roth

DETOUR THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS

Two years after my divorce, I packed my van with the intention of heading west—to the mountains. This wouldn’t be my first time visiting the mountains. I grew up on the East Coast, traveling North, where we would ski, visit family, and travel through long tunnels beneath the Appalachians.

Before my divorce, I traveled with my husband to the mountains of Colorado for family camp, and I had even been to mountains in other countries.

But this time was different. This time, I was traveling alone.

I organized my backpack, sleeping bag, and pillow in the back of my van. I reviewed my checklist once more, double-checking for my Camelbak, and closed the hatchback. I climbed into the front seat, took a deep breath, and set off.

I planned this trip three months prior, intentionally deciding to go it alone. There were plenty of times in the previous few years when I felt lonely. In many ways, I felt like I had lost it all. With divorce, you often lose more than just your marriage, and this was the case for me. I also lost my church, some of my closest friends, my house, and even parts of my identity. With so much upheaval and loss, there were times when I wondered if I would lose God, too. I wrestled with the concept of God I had been handed in my youth, while also feeling the calm, reassuring presence of God’s Spirit, as I built a new life for myself and my daughters.

While I knew what it meant to be lonely, choosing to do this trip alone was different. I was yearning for space and silence. The story of Elijah rang in my ears as I drove westward toward the mountains.

In Elijah’s story, he was told to go stand on the mountain because the Lord was going to pass by. Elijah obeyed, and as he stood there, a great wind came with strength that split rocks. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind.

Then an earthquake came, shaking the ground beneath Elijah’s feet, but still, the Lord wasn’t there.

After the earthquake came fire, but the Lord wasn’t in this force of nature either.

Finally, when the fire passed, there was sheer silence. A space that had just been shaken with thunderous gusts and shifting ground and lit up by blazing fire was slowly consumed with stillness. Elijah wrapped his face and stood expectantly.

From the silence, God spoke to Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-13).

This was the reason I was heading west to the mountains. I was in search of silence, in search of God’s voice.

After 15 hours of traveling on busy interstates and passing by grassy fields that stretched to the horizon, I turned into Badlands National Park and was in awe that grassland could morph into this rugged, barren landscape of eroded canyons and spires. I marveled at how wind and water had shaped this masterpiece over thousands of years. That day, I climbed and hopped around on rocks like I was a child again, and at night, I camped beside bison and prairie dogs.

The next day, I traveled to Bear Butte, a sacred place to the American Indians. On my hike to the top of the butte, I passed prayer cloths tied to trees and shrubs, encountered intense wind gusts, and reached the top just as the clouds let raindrops loose.

In both places, I knew God was present. I saw him in the crevices of rock, in the prayer cloths blowing from shrubs, in the herds of bison grazing, and at the peak of each rock and hill I climbed. But it was what happened next when I really heard God’s voice.

As I savored the beauty from these hikes, I headed into Black Hills National Forest when the lights on my dashboard began blinking. Before long, my van started making funny noises and jolting. My heart raced. I was thousands of miles away from home, far from anyone I knew, and my van was going to stall out.

I drove slowly and used what little cell service I could capture to pull up the names of the nearest body shops and tow truck companies. The options were few. Certain I couldn’t make it any further, I pulled over, and then it dawned on me: it was 3:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. I quickly began making phone calls. Finally, I found a car shop that said they could look at my car as long as I got it there by 5 p.m., as well as a tow truck company that said they could come pick up my van next.

Every other time I’d had a car issue, I was close to home. I had someone I could call who could come right over and help me. Now I was alone in the Black Hills.

“Okay, I hear you, God,” I thought as I sat waiting for the tow truck, watching the clock creep closer to five o’clock. I came on this trip expecting to hear God. I believed I would hear him in the mountains. And I did experience him there. But it was in the silence of my broken-down van that I heard him loudest.

“Do you trust me?” I heard his voice whisper in my soul. I let the question linger there as the tow truck picked me up and carried my van to the shop. There, the mechanic looked at my van and informed me that it was my alternator. The mechanic, an embodiment of small-town friendliness and care, promised me that he would get the part first thing in the morning so I could be on my way. He even pointed me in the direction of a campground down the road where I could spend the night.

That night, I stared at the sky that twinkled with stars and let out a quiet laugh. “I hear you, God,” I said again, this time in a whisper.

“And I trust you.”

I had traveled alone to meet with God and to hear his voice. And now I heard it loud and clear, in the silence of a campground—a detour to my original plans. A detour, just like my divorce had been several years earlier.

Sometimes detours are part of the plan.

It’s there that we come face-to-face with our fears. It is there that we notice the people who show up for us, even strangers who offer to work on a Saturday morning. In the detours, we find gratitude for the little things. And it’s in this place that we recognize how strong we truly are, capable of solving problems and finding resilience, even when our plans are shaken and our comforts removed.

The next morning, I was back on the road by 10 a.m. As I drove away from the mechanic’s shop and wound through the hills, I considered my next destination: Black Elk Peak. This would be my longest hike, and I was sure the views and hike would be another mountaintop experience of finding God.

But my heart settled into that present moment, acknowledging that God is just as much in the mechanic’s shop as he is on the mountaintop. God is in the brokenness and the detours of life, promising us that we are never truly alone.

ALISHA ROTH

Alisha Roth is a mother to five daughters and one stepson. She has homeschooled for ten years and enjoys learning alongside her daughters.

She is passionate about expanding her view of God and helping those who feel stuck.

Her writing has been published in the Wild + Free magazines, the book Homegrown, and her own book, Courageous Divorce, comes out next spring. She writes on Substack at Modern Little Women and on Instagram @littlewomenfarmhouse.