Perfection has a price
But I cannot afford to live that life
It always ends the same; a fight I never win
Oh, control
It’s time, time to let it go
“Control” -JJ Heller
There are a lot of things I am not good at.
Walking in high heels.
Running.
Climbing.
Trekking.
Letting go of control.
All of these have a common factor.
Each of these things require being on your tip toes.
In order to master any of those you have to learn to shift all of your weight to the front of your feet.
It can feel clumsy at first. Wearing high heels I’m sure I still look like a little calf learning to walk and it’s quite entertaining if you haven’t had the opportunity to witness it. Doing each of these things however has taught me to push my body further than I ever thought possible. You have to re teach your body to balance and use some muscles that you may have never used before.
Sometimes it requires a little bit of help. And I’m going to take a few moments to brag on a couple of friends here.
As much as I hate exercising, I have a dear friend at home that I get great quality time with if I go for a run with him. Every time I go running with my friend Todd he has to not only remind me to stay on my toes, but he eventually ends up literally pushing me to go farther. There’s been a continual theme since our sophomore year in high school up to this summer of him consistently telling me to work harder until I want to give up, then keep going a little bit more.
Recently I went trekking in Nepal for hours and Landon taught me that it’s easier to climb up if I put all of my weight on the balls of my feet. Both Landon and Kyle had to push and pull me up the mountain as I attempted to balance myself and my pack on a muddy slope on the balls of my feet. When I wanted more than anything to give up halfway through, Kyle took my hand and half dragged me up the last hill as he gave me words of encouragement to keep going. Again at the end of almost six hours of trekking I didn’t think I could make it any farther. I was tired, at my wits end from dealing with the fear and reality of leeches when we jumped/sloshed through mystery water, my shirt was soaked through with sweat, and my legs felt like jello.
There was only 3 km left to go.
Landon grabbed the back of my pack and just started pushing and extending his hand to pull me up when there were steep walls of dirt to climb up. As he helped me along, he gave me a play by play of what going through The Crucible the last week of Marine Bootcamp looked like. He barely broke a sweat the entire time and basically held me up by my pack the last bit of the way while he explained that I had to stay on my tip toes and keep going. I’m capable of going way farther than I ever thought possible, I just have to keep moving.
You get the idea.
And eventually I made it to the top!
Slowly but surely (because I can be pretty hard headed) God has been teaching me over the years that I am not in control. He is. And He wants me to live that out by keeping me on my toes. Just as my dear friends have physically pushed and pulled me farther and higher than I think I can go, God is constantly challenging me to go further than I thought possible. He is teaching me to use spiritual muscles I’m not used to using. He is forcing me to trust Him to be there when I feel unbalanced. He puts me in positions that allow me to fall and trust him to be right behind me to pick me back up and keep me moving forward.
In the end, I may never really look good wearing heels, but at least I can say I’m learning to trust God more and release control.
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A huge thank you to Todd, Kyle, and Landon. I love you all dearly and I’m so thankful for how each of you have encouraged me to do more than I was ever capable of doing!
***PRAISE***
Thanks to all of my incredibly generous supporters, I met my financial deadline!!
I am forever grateful for the sacrifices of Christmas gifts, going out to dinner, Black Friday shopping money, etc. you have made to keep me on this journey!
My next deadline is March 1st to be FULLY FUNDED! Only $4900 to go!!
