The Leap
During the summer leading to my senior year of high school, my family took a big road trip out west. We spent a month living out of our minivan traveling the country and seeing amazing things. We visited Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks. We toured Los Angeles and Death Valley. In spite of all the amazing places that I had the privilege of experiencing, one of the most significant parts of the trip was our time spent in Colorado Springs. One day while we were there, we explored the Garden of the Gods, a state park famous for its unique red rock formations. While in the park we noticed some people rock climbing, a novice experience for a guy from Southern Ohio. I thought that was pretty cool. I had always liked to scramble around on rocks but these people had ropes and were climbing to the top of the rocks. As I watched the climbers, I made a commitment to myself that the next time I went to the Garden of Gods I would be one of the people climbing.
Jump ahead to the summer after my senior year of college. I was a newly graduated adventure education major and a rock-climbing instructor. I had been on countless climbing trips in the eastern part of the United States, but I had never climbed out west. I talked a couple of my friends, Matt and Mya, into meeting me there to climb. My brother, Reece, joined in and the four of us spent a couple of days pushing ourselves mentally and physically on the red sandstone. Out of all of my climbing trips, this one ranked as one of the best ones, not because I climbed super hard or because I achieved any technical objective but because I fulfilled my commitment. I got to climb in the Garden of the Gods.
To make the trip sweeter, on our last day I decided to attempt the same route that I had watched the climbers on five years earlier. I tied into my end of the rope, reached up and grabbed the rock, and I was off. I moved up higher and higher. About three quarters of the way through the climb I ran out of good hand holds. I was standing in a divot in the rock and was quite comfortable but there was no easy way up past that point. I was stuck. I felt around with my hands but I couldn’t grab anything. As I searched, I noticed a large pocket above me. I stretched my arm up but couldn’t reach it. The pocket looked like It would be the perfect hold if only I could reach it. There was only one way for me to get to the hold…I had to jump.
A few months before this I had developed a slight fear of heights due to an unexpected fall that I had taken. My rope caught me but it was still an experience that shook me up quite a bit. I was high off the ground and if I jumped for this hold and missed then I risked falling again. My heart raced as I mustered the courage to make the move. I took a deep breath and mustered all of my courage, then I went for it. My hands left the rock, I felt my body extend as I thrust myself upward. To my delight I felt my fingers curl round the hold. I made it! I had the hold! I completed the rest of the climb without a problem. As I rappelled down, a sense of accomplishment washed over me. I had done what I had set out to do. I had climbed in the very spot that originally sparked my interest in this great sport, and I had faced my discomfort. I couldn’t help but smile as I noticed the spectators that had gathered to watch me just as I had watched the climbers years ago.
As I reflected on this climb, I realized that life can feel a lot like this. We feel safe with our feet in a “big pocket” three fourths of the way to the top, and we can see where we need to go but we aren’t comfortable making the big, scary move to get there. We hear God calling us to “Take the leap” and trust that the next hold will be a great one, but we are crippled by the fear of falling. I believe that if we respond to these moments by taking a deep breath, trusting God and “taking the leap”, we might just be amazed by what is in store for us when we reach the top.
