pretty red rocks

Okay, so a bunch of us went rock climbing yesterday at Palisades Sate Park. It was a whole lot of fun just to be outside with people. It was also a good learning experience for me. allow me to explain:

I've never been afraid of heights. I mean, I'll climb any mountain you put in front of me (especailly Mt. Baldy out at camp) and generally show such disregard for safety that it's a wonder my mother hasn't had a heart attack. But for some reason I can't handle climbing with a rope and harness. Puting my trust in a rope just wasn't going to cut it, and I'm still not sure why. I mean, I even tried finding places to free-climb, but was unable to get anywhere. It really frustrated me, especially because no one else seemed to be having any problems. Shannon and Jess learned to repel, and the others were experienced at it, and Dianna was content to stay firmly on the ground. But I wasn't content. I wanted to do more than watch, so I couldn't bear the idea that I was afraid. I'm not supposed to be afraid! And maybe I'm being overly-critical of the whole situation, but it bothered me that nobody else really cared whether I participated or even noticed when I wandered off. Except Dianna. She could tell something was bothering me, so we wandered off together for a bit but couldn't find anything better to climb on our side of the river.

When we came back something was finally different. Jason asked if either of us were willing to go down with him. What that meant was that he would be in charge of the rope, and the other person would just be along for the ride. That sounded better to me than trusting in my own power to get me down safely. After all, Jason is pretty much a prefessional at this sort of thing. Of course, even with professionals things sometimes go funny. The rope guards caught on the rope, and Adam had to cut them off with a knife so that we could continue our descent. Let me tell you, seeing a knife coming toward the rope that was holding me suspended above the ground was not a pleasant thing at all. But we made it down just fine, and it was actually really fun. I have decided that next time I will go down on my own and do things properly.

Jason said an interesting thing to me afterward. He said that it really took a lot of courage for me to trust him to get me down safely. It struch me as odd, since that was pretty much backward to how I was looking at things. After all, he was the experienced one. I figured he would be better able to get me down than I would.

Reflecting on that, it struck me as a parallel to the Christian walk. After all, God is the one who invented life and knows how everything works. We're just amatuers at this whole thing and don't really know what we're doing. so everything works a lot better if we just let the expert be in charge and do things his way. Sure it's dangerous, but going it alone will always be worse. And don't even consider just waiting on the solid ground. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. The Christain life is hard sometimes, and scary, but it's worth it. nothing compares to the joy we find in living for God and following the path he has laid out for us.

Food for thought.

-Kim