By the abundant grace of Our Lord Jesus I FINISHED COLLEGE!!!!!!! Now I just have teacher certification things to finish, but I'm done! I'm FREE! My exile is OVER!
A million cool things happened since Divine Mercy Sunday- I mean- Easter is always packed with wild spiritual adventures- and I'll probably never write about them- but I will write about one really cool thing I did this semester BLINDFOLDED ROCK CLIMBING.
I took a rock climbing class because I was a senior and I needed no-outside-work kind of class, plus rock climbing is cool. There was just one problem, I don't wear pants. Usually I'm really firm about the skirt only thing- I just hate wearing pants. But I felt this time I had to give in. I figured it would be pretty immodest to rock climb in a skirt, especially because I knew there was no real reason I shouldn't wear pants, I just don't like them. So I got myself a pair of loose fitting athletic pants and went to class.
Long story short, I was one of those kids who improved a lot over the semester because I hadn't really ever climbed before (saving those "community building retreats" we went on in middle school). I always took the easiest way up- meaning any of the most comfortable hand-holds- and I always made sure I was totally balanced before I moved a limb- definitely did NOT want to fall- even if I knew I was attached to a rope which actually pretty much makes falling more than a foot impossible. I kept watching these crazy guys (the real rock climbing guys who owned the fancy shoes and wore ripped khakis) leap to hand-holds out of their reach and then miss- and fall- and then recklessly grab back onto the wall and do it all over again. One day though we did blindfolded climbing- which is when the climber (not the belayer!) wears a blindfold and feels their way up the wall. It was amazing! All of a sudden any hand-hold you find feels good enough- because it's all you have! And you find all sorts of natural cracks and crannies that you never would have noticed had you been looking. And besides that- there are no distractions- you are in your own silent world and all you know is that you are somewhere on the wall and if you keep going you know that you'll get to the top. And I was thinking...
IT'S SO MUCH LIKE THE SPIRITUAL LIFE!
When we're kids we always take the easy way- not because we're lazy, but because we've never prayed before. We look for the big chunky prayers to memorize- we go to church on Sunday, own a Bible (might even read it every now and then!) and try to be good- but why? Because that's what you do! At a certain point though we have to realize that we can't just do something to do it. Just going to church on Sunday doesn't make a relationship with God- we have to participate, we have to explore our faith outside of Sunday- and most importantly we have to communicate with God!
Even still, sometimes all the chunky handholds make us think that they are the only way up the wall, and that using them is the goal. All the hand-holds are certainly the only way to get up the wall, God wills that. We can't find Jesus without reading the Bible, and going to church on Sunday is really, really important- even down to things like having a car and a job are important for a person to live, and how can we climb if we don't have food? But it isn't until God strips us of all sight- letting us feel us completely alone that we begin to search and find all the intricacies of the life he made for us. We begin to see that every second we are alive is an opportunity to get closer to Him.
At first we think that if we go up the wall as we have been, looking for the big easy hand-holds (feeling around for them at this point!), that we will make the same progress. But soon we find out that it not only takes way too long to find those while blindfolded but there's no guarantee that they are even there. In our struggle, however, we do feel a little natural ledge- you might recognize a little piece of a scripture that perfectly fits the situation you are now in or you may see a little gift you could give someone that will go unnoticed to all- in any case, it has helped you go three more feet up the wall. We get kind of used to using everything around us to get up the wall- and we even find a few nice hand-holds on the way! But then the unthinkable happens- you can't find a good enough hand hold and in your grappling around you lose balance and...
YOU FALL!
As you're falling you cry, "Oh Lord! How can you do this to me?? I was doing everything right! Why didn't you give me something to grab on to? Now I am falling! Now I am done for! I trusted you to give me everything I needed to be successful in climbing this wall! You said I would be happy if I followed you! I am not happy! I am falling! And what's worse- I can't see anything- you blinded me! I am lost!" This I like to think of as like- losing your job, or not being able to find one, or having someone yell at you for making a mistake- or even falling into a sin. Little did you know that God was holding you on the rope so tightly and was so closely monitoring your progress that when you fell off the wall, you didn't actually lose any ground. Nothing is actually wrong and you just freaked out for nothing. You are hanging there apart from the wall and God is just holding you. All you feel is Him holding you. You can't see anything, you can't feel anything , you are just hanging in mid air thinking- how am I not dead? How is it that I am surviving without everything being perfect? How am I surviving without the house being clean, or with overwhelming fatigue? The truth is, God is way bigger than you and loves you so much that He is personally holding you in mid-air until you figure out that all you have to do is grab onto the wall and keep climbing. He as shown you His presence, but only after long suffering and failure- not to mention having to notice and USE all the gifts He gave you- even down to the most minute detail.
At the end of that day's climb, you don't have to climb blindfolded again- but if you get distracted and forget God, you might want to. And besides, you know now that if you fall He WILL hold you- and is always holding you! And when you use all the chunky hand-holds now you will see that they will only propel you up the wall quicker and so you rejoice in using them- instead of being dependent. Oh! Isn't God wonderful? He thinks of everything!
In any case, I thought it was a neat comparison and there's so much else in it that I could write- but I'll leave that to the Lord to reveal in our hearts! All praise be to Him forever!
