Life’s “light bulb” moments can sometimes happen unexpectedly and like seeing a shooting star they are usually a rare sight. Many envision having an enlightening “aha” moment after a three-month soul-seeking sabbatical in India or perhaps even some have hopes of finding the secret to life by a visit from a mystical Gandhi wannabe complete with a white sari, who decides to let you in on the secret the universe has been hiding from you all your life.
One of my life’s light bulb moments on the other hand, true to my world (as a mother of four) was experienced by watching my girls play on a jungle gym. Go figure. At first it was one of those fleeting thoughts, a mind-flash scrolling through the forefront of my never -still mind. There among the thousands of other thoughts like “what am I fixing for dinner” and “don’t forget to send that email in the morning” it flashed, like the stock ticker on the New York stock exchange. Had I not been using my mental TiVo and paused I may have completely missed it.
I had observed something very inconspicuous yet incredibly significant. One of my girls, Mikaela, with a little bit of encouragement and spotting from me had fearlessly climbed to the top of a very high and twisting red ladder onto the second story platform of a jungle gym. (I need to note this was not your typical playscape ladder. This baby was the kindergarten equivalent of Kilimanjaro - the Mount Everest of playscape ladders). Its rungs were about 12 inches apart and twisted like a strand of DNA around and around from the ground up about 9 feet. At the top, there was another 18 inch gap between the ladder and the platform requiring that you stretch out in a final leap-of-faith-like manner because for a quick moment you have to completely let go of the ladder leaving only your foothold as security and grab to leap up to the top platform. I was quite impressed when Mikaela (the least fearless of all my children) confidently climbed to the top. Her younger and very competitive sister, Mia was quick to follow. However, when Mia began her climb doubt and fear overcame her. She cautiously climbed half-way up but no amount of coaching, encouragement or pushing was going to help her. She began crying and asked me to pull her down. By this time Mikaela had made it down the slide and over to us for another climb. This time, seeing her sisters’ sheer fear and pain something changed in her. She too did the exact same thing, climbing half-way up only to change her mind a climb back down.
At first I was frustrated, I kept telling her “but you CAN do this and I promise I’d never let you fall”. What changed? I soon realized however, that fear had overcome her and logic and reason had disappeared like beer at a frat party. Ironically, it was not HER fear but seeing her sister afraid that stopped her. “Oh God, are you trying to teach me something here?” I thought. I had been battling my own fears boiling to the surface in my life and obviously it had come to the point that it required a “time out” with God so he could catch my attention and illustrate to me – on a jungle gym – how fear had been affecting my life. At first, I pictured myself as I had been climbing my own Kilimanjaro-like “ladder of life” and all I could do was cry like a baby and say, “I can’t do this, I’m too afraid...I want down!” All the while God is standing there saying “but you CAN do this and I promise I’d never let you fall.”
I chewed on this idea for months, thinking of the areas of my life affected by fear but more importantly what fear was keeping me from doing, who it was keeping me from loving and how it affected my thinking. Each time I pictured myself on that red ladder and asked myself, “What’s keeping you from going where you want to go?”
Fear is natural and in some respects a God-given survival instinct. We all have different fears – some which have deep roots and like any thing with deep roots, can’t be removed easily because in many cases we’ve had a life long relationship with it; fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of losing something or someone but the bottom line is at some point – if our fears are not addressed and overcome we are selling ourselves short. Fear sometimes has to be overcome one step at a time but if we are persistent it will eventually grow smaller and smaller. Next time fear comes into play in your life, picture the red ladder and ask yourself first, “If I fall will it really be the end of the world” but more importantly remember God is always there to catch us and teach us with his wonderful sense of humor.
Posts
