Angela Donadio has walked through the valley of the shadow of death to her own personal summit on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Her journey was a physical one, but the lessons she shared in a recent interview on the Greenelines podcast were deeply spiritual and edifying to the body of Christ.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Angela is a minister, author, talented musician and evangelist to Africa to help women step into their calling.
Following two near-death experiences, she now shares her insight into the trials and challenges she endured.
“We all must make a choice that either God is good and trustworthy, or He’s not. I don’t think many of us realize that when we go through something, we inadvertently put God’s character on trial. We think, God, if you’re good, why is this happening? Are You really good to me?” she said.
“We come to this crossroads and make a resolute decision: ‘Yes, Lord, You are good, and You are worth my praise, You are worth my trust, You are worth my life and You are worth my surrender.’ This is a theme I hear over and over in my ministry. I want to use the voice God has given me to especially help women to know that while you may feel ordinary, you might feel like you don’t have much to offer, but God can breathe on our ordinariness.”
Despite earlier health problems, God’s breath on Angela shocked her medical team and launched her into a deeper walk of anything but ordinary. A gifted adventure junkie, she joined a group of hikers to pursue her draw to climb Kilimanjaro. Just an adventure? Maybe. But Angela believes she was destined to make the climb to complete a metaphor of her life from valley to mountaintop.
“I had climbed to a little over 15,000 feet. I had a God-moment there. I was struggling to get up this last leg, and the only thing left was to get up at midnight and make the summit. I was feeling the pull of every step. And a guide near me saw I was having a hard time getting my breath. He came over to. me and said, ‘Just follow my steps.’ And he led me the rest of that last leg.”
Angela didn’t reach the summit of the mountain. But she climbed to her personal summit.
“I did not make the final summit of 19,000 feet. My personal summit was at 16,000 feet. There were seven or eight of us who had altitude sickness too severely, and we were walked down. We turned off our headlamps. It was pitch-black; all we could see were stars. There was a wave of disappointment, and I processed that. Then the Lord led me to Galatians 5, where it says, ‘Now that you live by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit.'”
“And immediately I had a visual of the guy who helped me up the mountain and told me to look at him and not the mountain,” she said.
There are lessons to be learned in our valleys and on our mountains.
We have a Comforter. A way-maker. A wonderful mountain climber. And we can follow Him in the valleys and on the mountains.
Listen to the entire podcast with Angela Donadio here. And be sure to tune in to her podcast, Make Life Matter, on the Charisma Podcast Network.
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