If you’ve met me or read almost anything I’ve written, you know I tend to be, cautious. I do not like big spiders or weird food. I am not fond of birds that are taller than an average sized toddler. Perhaps one of my biggest phobias?
Heights.
Not only do I worry about falling to my death, but I also have unsettling visceral reactions to being higher off the ground than the ground. I get shaky and have a pit in my stomach. I feel like parts of my body are paralyzed. And if I must go to the edge of something that is high up? As LEGO Batman politely put it:
“No. No. No. No.”
So why and how did I get myself to jump off a platform 35 feet in the air to go ziplining last weekend? Love and lament.
When I was in Shanghai several years ago, I was embarrassed to be shaking before, during, and upon exiting the high-speed elevator that took us to the observation deck of the second-highest building in the world. I hate that panicky feeling I get whenever I’m hiking or driving in the mountains. And heights aren’t the only thing I’m afraid of.
I’ve also lamented my fear of upsetting people. I’m afraid of being rejected by those closest to me. And whether it’s the fear of being too high up in the air or just being too much as a human person – it’s exhausting.
So, when some friends asked me to go on the zip line Saturday because they loved me and knew I could do it, I knew doing so was about more than making that climb. Choosing to go off that three-story-high platform wasn’t just about facing my fear of heights, but confronting my anxieties about people and relationships, too. It was about choosing to say, no matter how afraid I am,
“Jesus, I trust you.”
Thank you, Carrie, Justyce, Rosemary (& team :)). You don’t know how much your encouragement and support helped me. Not just to take that leap, but to know that with the Lord (and sisters like you on my side) –
I’m brave enough to do so.