Ryan George's Blog

I enjoy a sport called via ferrata. It’s a way of climbing mountains using cable systems and rungs—something halfway between rock climbing and hiking. The Italians invented it, which is why they got to name it. In English, via ferrata means “iron way.”

This summer, I invited four buddies who’d never tried the iron way to the Italian Alps. We landed Friday night, climbed a popular introductory route on Saturday. Then the next morning, I brought them to Via Ferrata Eterna, the longest and second-most technical iron way in all of Italy.

We hiked a steep hill up to the rock face. Then, we climbed into our harnesses, buckled our helmets, and prayed. I checked the weather one last time on my phone. Due to the heat wave across Europe, we had a balmy day ahead, similar to what June was like for us back home in Virginia. No rain forecasted for 11 hours.

We previewed our route two nights before we climbed it—via helicopter. This route starts off frame to the right and ends at the gondola station on the left.

“Did you feel that!?”

I put the fastest climber in the lead and made myself the caboose of the climbing train. About an hour into our climb, we had traversed to the back side of the mountain’s spine and found ourselves clipped to the rock thousands of feet above the valley below. Out of nowhere, we heard thunder coming from the other side of the mountain. One of my buddies blurted, “Did you feel that!?” I had. Electricity had shot down the line we were all holding to climb. I maneuvered to a ledge big enough to sit down and pulled out my phone. The radar showed a surprise storm blowing through—moving away from us but dangerously close to us.

We couldn’t go back down the way we’d climbed. The course was designed to be completed only in one direction. There was only one way out. I prayed silently over and over again. I reminded my friends not to rush. Rushing leads to mistakes, and mistakes here came with really big consequences.

Josh was not just our team billy goat but also our Route Scout.

At least 15 answered prayers

My prayers were answered, and we climbed in sunshine for the next 4.5 hours. According to my hiking app, we had gained 3,900 vertical feet from the parking lot to the gondola station at the end of the iron way. We would’ve celebrated, but we noticed there were no gondolas arriving or departing from the station. Metal doors had been rolled down and locked to the platform. Every employee access door was closed and locked. We would learn later that the last gondola had descended 53 minutes before we got there.

The five of us were stuck on a mountain 10,000 feet up with almost no food, little water, no camping gear, and no layers to survive a night above a glacier. We surveyed the area and found no trail down from our position.

The gondola was still running when we got to this point. Jason moved across these rocks like he was destined for this climb. (He was.)

Fewer options than we wanted

I Googled “Italian version of 911” and called the number. Through a translator, the operator told me the only way down would require ice axes and crampons to cross the ice field made fragile in the heat wave. We had no such gear. She told me all helicopters were occupied. She insisted that we must stay there overnight.

I told the operator that we needed to get off the mountain tonight. She told me to call back in 20 or 30 minutes. I did, and she told me her team hadn’t found a solution and to call back later. I pulled the guys into a huddle, and we prayed. Nobody panicked. The guys found a couple of disposed lighters and some combustible materials. The door to an equipment shed was unlocked. We could at least get out of the wind.

The fellas found an unlocked door and a soft floor in case we needed to sleep above the glacier.

Where do you feel embarrassment in your body?

When I called back at the designated time, the operator asked if anyone was hurt. My pride was bruised, but paramedics can’t treat that. My knee was throbbing; so, I said yes. Anyway, that was the magic word. She told me they were going to impress gondola employees into service and come get us.

A half hour later, I limped up the stairs to the gondola platform as men in neon jackets herded us onto the cable car. On the steep, scenic ride down, the only rescuer who spoke English informed us that we each needed to pay the gondola operators 120 Euros in cash. That was almost three times the cost of a one-way ticket, but we were glad to pay it. We were so happy, in fact, that we asked the rescue team for a photo with them.

We each paid these guys €81 in cash to get off the mountain on a Sunday night—a fantastic deal.

A unique exclusivity

I apologized to the fellas. I was exclusively responsible for getting us stuck. But then I pointed out that we paid about 80 extra Euros and two hours of waiting for a story nobody else who vacations in the Dolomites would ever have. “Nobody we know will ever have this story!” I blurted with a huge smile on my face.

I noted that you can’t book an adventure like this from a tour guide. Then I laughed. “Dude. We’re going home with a bigger story than we came for!” That’s saying something. In 72 hours in Italy, we got an aerobatic paraglider flight, a proximity helicopter flight, and 6,000 vertical feet of mountains climbed. Somehow, we’d outdone ourselves, and the story we’ll probably tell the most was the one we didn’t plan on writing.

We were probably two hours away from that gondola station when Mitch had his joy captured here. It seemed “right there.” haha

Making the oligarchs jealous

I’ve participated in epic adventures on every continent—surfing and doing survival training in the Arctic, jumping off buildings and mountains and airplanes, driving race cars, and swimming in dangerous whitewater. I tell those stories a lot. But the bigger stories—the ones I tell with laughter or tears, the ones I tell people almost in disbelief—are the stories I wasn’t trying to write.

So many times in my life I’ve been in the right place at the right time to witness a moment no billionaire can buy and no dictator can demand. I’ve found adventure and beauty where I wasn’t looking. More importantly, redemption found me in ways I couldn’t take credit for. 10-year-old me, 20-year-old me, and even 30-year-old me would hardly believe the life I’ve gotten to live. Some days, I pinch myself. My friends have heard 48-year-old me exclaim, “Can you believe we’re alive for this!?”

Those stories have often cost me a lot of time, money, dignity, or comfort. I have a lot of regrets, but I have even more stories of what grew out of the manure I could not avoid. I don’t know how my life’s grand narrative will end. Heck, I don’t know what challenges wait for me a month from now. But I’m learning to look for the story I can someday tell—tales of what love did or what serendipity showered on me.

I enjoyed my conversations with Eric as we climbed further away from the valley below.

The choice to search

We all have that opportunity to look for better, grander endings to the stories being written around us. We can do the hard work of finding beauty where it’s rare and calling it out for others. We can make good on the lessons learned only in failure. Even if only at the margins, we can add color and contrast to the black and white realities we face.

Think about it. The stories we tell the most aren’t about when life went smoothly, when events went exactly as we’d planned.

So, the next time you’re in the middle of a situation going sideways, take a deep breath. Then bolster yourself in this reality: if you look hard enough, you might just see that you’re getting a bigger, better story than you had originally planned.

I started serving in the parking lots of my church twenty years ago this week.

My church has evolved through different seasons, and each version has been reflected in my team and in the energy of the parishioners in the parking lot.

Over those two decades, I’ve gone through even more versions of myself. I’ve rearranged my bucket list, my theology, and my habits. I’ve morphed through different personas in moments of insecurity. I don’t attend church for the same reasons as in years past, and I have different expectations for the experience.

But one thing has been a constant across 900± weekends: my worship starts on the asphalt. Church begins at dawn while I’m welcoming fellow servers, often in the dark. It continues in a prayer huddle where I’ve routinely seen men and women unburden their hearts—sometimes in tears. It spills out onto the asphalt, where we prepare souls arriving from very different weeks and different life stories. By the time my worship makes it indoors, what happens in the service can only be a force multiplier for what was already in motion.

For most parishioners and even servers, their few minutes in the parking lot are moments of transition. It’s the cordial walk or quiet time between a climate-controlled vehicle and an air-conditioned building. For those of us in safety green or neon yellow—or whatever you call this color—the space between the SUVs and minivans is a place where our hearts feel at home.

There are spots dedicated for new & expecting moms, those with physical handicaps, and those who ride motorcycles; but the rest of that lot was destined for me to roam until I found purpose. Between the curbs and the light poles, I’ve often felt the smile of heaven and a peek into my legacy.

The Apostle Paul said that God “gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are.” [Acts 17:28 CEV] For the past twenty years, I’ve consistently found that to be true between trucks and cars.

Dude. Baptizing a teammate was one of the honors of my life.

Our Biggest Squad Ever

I baptized this friend & teammate on the same stage I later eulogized at his funeral. Patrick left his mark on our hearts.

Hard to believe this munchkin is now in 7th grade!

Both of these kiddos now call me “Uncle Ryan.”

What a fun Christmas season this was for our team!

We celebrated Tanner getting into the Naval Academy. Now, he’s a SEAL.

 

I met “Mr. Young” in the autumn of 1998, half a year after my first date with his daughter. The next time I heard his voice was on a cassette tape he mailed from Bolivia after I asked if I could marry her. The last time I heard his voice was on his way out of my house after dropping off a donation toward her recent missions trip.

Across the 28 years between my first and last conversations with my father-in-law, I learned that we held different theology, politics, and bucket lists. Curt was filled with a rooted certainty that contrasted my growing skepticism and insatiable curiosity. But I also learned that I wanted a similar reputation—or at least a similar life trajectory.

Curt escaped to the Marine Corps after an unstable childhood that stretched from Oklahoma to California. His chemically addicted mom married five times, and some of those scattered homes weren’t physically or emotionally safe. The dude traversed the Great Plains as an itinerant combine driver and then worked as a welder on oil rigs—a man’s man who wore trucker hats before Burt Reynolds movies made them cool and X-Games athletes made them cool again.

He carried that gumption to the Bolivian side of the Amazon basin, using machetes and chainsaws to cut a runway for supply planes. He built a primitive cabin on stilts as a mission base where his preschoolers explored in their undies and rubber boots. He fabricated an impressive swamp tractor with floater tires. He sliced through snakes while clearing land and got rescued while swimming—shotgun still in hand—through the inky waters of a pitch-black jungle night after his fishing boat overturned. Half of the pictures of that era of my wife’s life have Sharpie edits over their neighbor’s default nakedness, and her family left the remote lifestyle only after Curt’s ministry partner took a six-foot bamboo arrow in the back from angry locals.

The dude was hardcore. Full out. All in. He was on an assignment from God, and everyone needed to be on board. For a man who wore a lot of gray pants, his world held a lot of black and white—his way or the wrong way. Some of my wife’s memories include notes of the red-faced parenting of my childhood. But that’s not the dad she now remembers or the one that brought tears to our eyes as we previewed the slideshow for his memorial. His tender, wounded soul shed more and more armor as more and more candles were added to his birthday cakes.

In retirement, Curt’s heart and voice both grew softer with each trip around the sun. He proved more grateful for the redemption in his story and more tickled by the grandkids that kept arriving around his table. Each year brought more wonder to his eyes and more joy from simple pleasures. His prayers grew shorter and more often punctuated with tears.

Isn’t that how it should be?

The shirtless kid who raced modified boats and stole motorcycles became the sweater-vested octogenarian who sang carols in Christmas pageants and hymns to residents of assisted living centers. The strong-handed missionary who assembled trailers to keep his family fed was the same hunched grandpa who later looked around holiday tables with moist eyes and shook his head at how lucky he was. He felt so blessed, and he regularly let us know it.

His whole life, my wife’s dad escaped into westerns—televised stories of a daring, sharp-jawed wrangler who dropped no-nonsense one-liners before leaving towns better than he found them. Fittingly, Curt slipped peacefully into the afterlife while his TV flickered with such a story. The fiction that had inspired his daring feats had reached peak reality in the nonfiction of his life. During a summer sunset, he disappeared into the horizon having convinced us not just that he’d left the world a better place but also that he’d left the world from a better place.

Curtis Howell Young proved that the gospel he preached in mountain villages and rainforest clearings can eventually be good news for those who know us best. He demonstrated that the strongest evidence we can give the world of an Eternal Healer is our own healed heart. His example gives me hope that my last decades on this planet can be my best years yet. Whether or not I get as much time here as he did, I’ll spend the rest of my timeline grateful for my intersection with his.

Every June, our local library celebrates the summer solstice with crafts, games, and yummy treats. But my favorite part of the event is the release of the lanterns on the pond. There’s something magical about these flickering lights slow-dancing between the reedy banks. The event staff asks us to make a wish before we place our LED candle onto the inky surface, and I love the visual of dreams piercing the darkness.

Dreaming feels audacious at this stage of life. I live in a comfortable home and have worked in my pajamas since the days of flip phones. I drive vehicles with Apple CarPlay and heated seats. People who hold pieces of my heart tell me they love me—often. Every Sunday morning is filled with hugs. My nephews think I’m Bear Grylls. My passports hold stamps from more than 30 countries. I’ve experienced more grand adventures than deep relational wounds.

But I get in my feels every year, watching these wishes carried by the first breezes of summer. This weekend, I spent my wish on someone else. I still don’t feel permission to ask Fate for more. Five decades into my time on this planet, I haven’t yet found the balance between contentment and longing. What I have found is a peace while absorbing the collective dreams of my friends, neighbors, and strangers.

The world is a heavy place, captured in headlines of inequity, violence, and grift. Whether it’s discipline or optimism, I take heart in candles that overcome gravity and hope that resists the night. My friends’ daughters first invited me to this annual tradition, and I want my life to contribute to a world where their flower-crown wishes can be spent on whimsy and wild imaginations.

Due to a client’s Facebook page getting hacked and used for cybersecurity fraud, I spent May 19 through June 18 on what Facebook ambiguously called a “temporary restriction” from advertising.

Creating Facebook ads is 90% of my livelihood.

Losing advertising privileges showed me how fragile my occupation is. It made me evaluate my career, my goals, my identity, my priorities, my legacy, and even the promises & platitudes of my faith.

The last month was harder for me than the weeks when I prepared to confront an abuser, switch faith systems, offer eulogies, and recover from 5-figure financial surprises. The uncertainty and lack of agency made it hard for me to sleep. I dropped 8 pounds—my anxiety stealing my appetite. I lost thousands of dollars in income after referring work to other vendors.

All of that was worth it for what I learned in the process. I’ve rarely felt as profoundly accepted as I have during this ordeal. I discovered that the roots of my relationships go far deeper than I knew. The messages and prayers of my friends & family surprised me. Their specific declarations led me to blurt through tears to my therapist, “What if [what my friends are saying about me] is true!?” I’m still struggling to absorb this affirmation—to believe that reality.

With advertising privileges restored, I’m not returning to normal (though I wouldn’t mind returning to my former workload). Dear souls have helped me embrace some changes I need to consider beyond just those related to Facebook and my business. It will be hard work, but I’m grateful for the support network that is daring me toward a better version of my eventual life story.

When I got the news that I could build ads again, I ugly-cried in my truck. Cathartic tears rinsed my face for probably 20 minutes. The relief felt like the moment captured in this photo—an extraordinary concoction of cathartic release, a vanquished fear, and a sense of freedom. (Yes, that’s me. And yes, that’s as exhilarating as it looks.)

I’ve been asked often over the past month, “How are you doing?” I haven’t known how to answer that question. But I now know something that I couldn’t find in the stats, spreadsheets, and crossed-off to-do lists I’ve used to tell myself I’m enough: I am surrounded by an admiration I must learn how to receive.

I started journaling ten years ago today on one of the most discouraging days of my life. I’ve recorded an entry for almost every day since that fateful May 18, 2016.

Every once in a while, I flip through past entries to reflect on different moments. There’s a lot of hard stuff in there. I don’t wallow in the low points, as I’ve seen so much pain redeemed in my life. Those lines illustrate shifts in perspective, theology, and relationships. I try not to let who I used to be burden my soul with regret. But I find value in pondering the mile markers on the way to the current version of my heart.

Thankfully, those pages are also filled with epic days:

• snow camping in Antarctica and then visiting my seventh continent (Asia)
• adopting a teenager after 19 years of marriage
• starting professional counseling and attending therapy retreats
• wing walking on an aerobatic biplane in Washington and California
• BASE jumping for the first time
• surprising my wife in Italy to re-propose to her on a girls’ trip
• attending ice racing school
• publishing my second and third books
• snowmobiling in three countries
• completing both a survival class and a surfing lesson in the Arctic Circle
• introducing my friends to ice climbing
• staring wide-eyed from helicopters en route to glacier adventures in British Columbia
• riding in the front seat of an aerobatic glider guided by a three-time champion aerobatic pilot
• driving through dozens of creeks and rivers in Iceland
• spending an entire night hanging off a cliff in Colorado
• swimming behind an ice breaker ship in Sweden
• spending multiple weekends camping next to UTVs in Utah’s high desert
• crossing the highest Alps road passes of 6 countries back-to-back via motorcycle
• canoeing the canyonlands of the Texas-Mexico border
• officiating weddings (including for my baby sister) and watching my wife officiate her first
• snorkeling between the tectonic plates of North America and Europe
• bagging my third and fourth continents for bungee jumping
• racing dune buggies at night in a Nevada desert
• sea kayaking after midnight in the Lofoten Islands
• paragliding 9 times in 6 countries
• finishing record days, weeks, months, and years in my business
• discovering that my nephew had been named for me
• tender relational moments that put a lump in my throat when I recall them

How ‘bout you?

What’s been one of the best things you’ve experienced in your past decade of life?
How often do you go back to relive those moments?
And what grand adventure do you hope is someday a true thing you can describe in your journal?

 

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Stock image purchased from iStockPhoto.com

I am quite addicted to the shows that don’t require screens, subscriptions, or an Internet connection. I continue to find instructive escape via experiences I can’t pause, fast forward, or conveniently consume in the cracks of my schedule.

Ridgeline sunsets.Moonlight hikes.Lightning shows.Rain on the leaves.Don’t get me wrong: my soul has been marked by TV scenes; I’ve cried hot, cathartic tears after poignant movies; and I spend more hours a week scrolling social media than participating in faith environments. I don’t have the proportions right—in part because the optimal balance may be unknowable.

But I know this: the more our shared culture pushes me to the artificial, the curated, and the convenient, the more I need the opposites of those realities. I find the slow, humble, and tangible gifts of nature to be priceless.

In a world with ever-present bar codes, QR codes, or discount codes, I need the lesson of generosity—of no price tag, no “add to cart,” no sales tax. I also need the example of nature’s magnanimity to confront a mind always thinking in terms of billable dollars per hour.

In a world generating headlines of grift and genocide, inequality and subterfuge, injustice and dehumanization, I’m grateful for the incredible luxury of a quiet dusk from an available overlook.

Every other Tuesday, my alarm rings way earlier than usual. 4:40am. Mitch’s goes off even earlier as (1) he has further to drive and (2) he makes his kids’ lunches before he leaves.

We alternate who prays in the parking lot at 5:16am, and I should probably change up what I say after removing my hat. “Thank you for access to these trails. Thank you for the gift of Mitch’s friendship. Thank you for the conversation we’re about to have.”

After the benediction, we hike up and over a hill with a mountain’s name. The stat line each time:

6.2 miles950 feet of elevation gainCountless drags from the CamelBak nozzles hanging over our shoulders

The addictive nature of our conversations arises from the juxtaposition of our past differences and current similarities.

Mitch grew up in a Catholic single-parent home in Miami and got the full college experience at Florida State. I spent my formative years as a preacher’s kid in a sheltered home school family and then at a fundamentalist college that (1) forbade me to be on an elevator with a female and (2) framed Jerry Falwell as liberal. Mitch can’t remember certain details of his beachfront spring breaks. My spring breaks were each filled with a dozen mandatory church services I’ve tried to forget. Mitch played baseball and had girlfriends. I played LEGOs and had a pen pal (who told me my penmanship matched that of a serial killer). His high school friends still text him every week, while not all of my siblings let me know when they’re in town.

But both of us grew up at sea level and have fallen in love with mountains. We’re both students of gentle parenting and avid consumers of nonfiction books. We both found a Jesus worth the sacrifice of our comfort and preferences. We both drive Tacos and struggle with moderation around tacos. We both start our serving shifts at church before sunrise on Sundays—he in the kitchen and me in a parking lot. Super niche: we both think Slovenia is an underrated vacation destination.

We share prayer requests with the same dozen or so guys on Wednesday nights. We share a preference for outdoor faith gatherings over indoor ones. We share a reticence to turn on our headlamps until one or both of us trips in the dark. We share a respect for the woods as a confessional space.

In fact, when my counselor wants me to expand trust or a conversation beyond the walls of her office, she’ll recommend that I talk to Mitch. When I do, he has always honored that confidence. Beyond healthy, I find that space Mitch holds for me to be holy.

I used to think church happened only during service times. Then, I realized spiritual community could be any intentional gathering. Now, a faith space can be anywhere I go with an intentional friend.

I won a middle school math award from the Delaware Association of Christian Schools, but it wasn’t until today that I ran the numbers on Jesus’ promise: “Where TWO or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them.” By my calculations, Mitch and I have hiked 150 miles a year with the Creator of Hearts. And the greatest evidence I have that Christ’s 2,000-year-old promise is true is how Heaven’s empathy, curiosity, acceptance, and pushback join me before dawn twice a month.

Most of y’all know my wife leads a women’s ministry at our church (“Women’s Life”), while I facilitate a parachurch men’s gathering (“Dude Group.”) Crystal deserves her flowers for how she intentionally pursues the hearts of women and sacrificially helps meet their spiritual, relational, and physical needs.

But this picture from Ian & Kate’s beautiful wedding illustrates what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.” See, she has at different times spiritually invested in all of the dudes in this picture—myself included. She even got the privilege to baptize the groom. In a world that tries to relegate XX chromosomes to subsidiary roles in the kingdom and especially the American church, she knows that spiritual gifts aren’t determined by gender and aren’t dependent on the age or sex of the recipient.If Crystal had been in the first-century network of house churches, she’d have been on the list of women Paul shouted out in his letters as fantastic ministry partners and local assembly leaders.I grew up in a faith system that oddly required testicles to hold titles and jobs in faith spaces. I married a woman with more [courage] than I’ll ever have who didn’t care what she was allowed to do or what label was on the church website under her name. She just showed up for people, held space, spoke challenging words, and convinced people of Jesus’ affection through her own.For the past two and a half decades, I’ve lived with a shepherd of souls. And in this highland cattle pasture, I was wowed yet again by the fruit of my wife’s pastoral labor.

It’s funny how time changes our dreams.

Forty-five years ago, I thought this car was the epitome of American vehicles. In reality, it was the Mercury knockoff of maybe the worst version of the Ford Mustang ever.

My dad told me I could have this red two-door when I got my license, and I thought about that “someday” regularly. This was the car my dad took my sister and me to do doughnuts in Chattanooga intersections, when snow shut down the city—to show off our Buffalo heritage and bravery to house-bound Southerners. This was the car from which I saw a shooting star and wished for a brother while bundled up in blankets in the hatchback trunk. My dad wheeled and dealed used cars while we lived in Tennessee, but this one stayed in our driveway for years—even as the address of our driveway changed.

Several years after this photo was snapped, though, my dad sold this promise to a missionary friend for a dollar. Jesus needed a shiny, red Capri more than I did.

 

I’m not bitter. It all worked out. I learned to drive in a car I liked even more—the 1978 version of one I’ve Googled to see what it would cost to ship from Japan. And for the last 21 years, I’ve had a supercharged MINI Cooper in my driveway or garage—and on more winding roads than I can count.

1981 Ryan had no imagination that someday I’d drive rally, Indy, and Formula 2000 race cars—or drift at ice racing school on a frozen lake. Reagan-era Ryan didn’t even know what a Nissan GT-R or Lamborghini was and, thus, couldn’t have dreamed of driving them as I did with Timmy and Mitch. Every vintage of me would’ve been—and still is—blown away that I starred in a unique car commercial with a stunt driving body double.

My life is so much more exciting than I ever dreamed it would be. As a result, my imagination has rarely been bigger than my potential. It hasn’t needed to be. Fate, Chance, or Sovereignty has allowed my muscles of hope to atrophy.

Someday, I’ll probably look back on pictures of 2026 me and think, “Man. If that dude only knew.” And I’m kinda glad I don’t know yet. That ignorance will hopefully let me show up with more wonder and less entitlement—and a healthy sense that the world is so much bigger than I can ever know.