Climbing Rocks
*NOTE: picture is a slide show. Click on arrows!
Hello everybody! I have been away for some time now, and it's mostly because school has been consuming my life lately. No joke, but I'm back baby!
Today I want to talk about something that has been in my heart for a good month now. This past spring break, I had the honor to go on a mission trip with a team to Grand Junction, Colorado. There is currently a christian college ministry called Chi Alpha in Colorado Mesa University, which I am also a part of at my own university. However, Mesa University's Chi Alpha is fairly new, so our team went to go meet new people, love on them, get them to come to a service, and eventually get plugged in to a small group (bible study group). While we were there, we quickly got absorbed in to a culture filled with hippies who LOVE to hike and rock climb and I was LIVING for it, because I like to believe that I am an inner hippie that just hasn't fully blossomed yet. A part of me is envious of girls who could give two craps about shaving their armpits and legs. Anyway, that's not the point.
There was one particular day during the week we were there, where we took a group of students to Moab, Utah to go hiking, see the arches, and rock climb! Just to give you some background, a few weeks prior to the trip, my friend Veronica and I went to our school's recreational center to climb their artificial rock, and I didn't even make it two feet off the ground, so I was almost certain that I was not even going to bother. However, the hippie inside of me said, "C'mon.... you're in MOAB... when are you ever going to get to do this again?" so I gave in. I must have had a serious adrenaline rush, because I made it half way up the rock so quick! In my mind, I was thinking "ok... this is good enough, I feel brave, I'm ready to come down," so I told Brett (the Colorado Mesa's Chi Alpha director) who was belaying me, that I was ready to come down. Brett very calmly agreed, and told me to sit on my harness for a little bit, and then he told me to look around at my surroundings and asked me if I felt safe. I said yes. Then he said, "cool, I think you could go a little higher." I honestly did not know what to think, but I felt like I needed to obey him as silly as that sounds. I braced myself, used every ounce of strength that I had, and went even further, almost to the top of the rock!
Why am I telling you this? I'm sharing this with you because I learned a lesson through this experience. When I belayed back down to the ground, Brett looked so proud and said, "wow, would you look at that? you made it farther than you thought you would and honestly, you could've made it all the way to the top, but you chose not to. You see, that's how living life with Jesus is. Sometimes we're gonna go through hard seasons, we're gonna want to give up, we'll think we can't do it anymore, and we'll want to come back down. Every time we think we can't go on anymore, we can always go a little further. Always." My mind was seriously blown; that word was so timely for the season I am living in right now. I am positive that this will also minister to you who is reading this right now. Jesus is our perfect, most trust-worthy belayer. He will never let us down, or let us fall. He will always be there to catch us, but most importantly He is constantly there to show us that we can always go a little further.