“…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
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Isaiah 40:31
I live in a small town called Mechanicsburg, located in central Pennsylvania, where winters consist of cold, miserable drizzles, vast amounts of ice and very, very rarely some actual snow. Despite this, in the eighth grade I tried skiing at our local hill, and immediately fell in love with it. The feeling of rushing down the slope, the challenge of trying steeper and more challenging routes, the thrill of carving long, sweeping arcs into the snow. All of it.
Along with the absence of snow, a lack of real mountains to ski down poses a second challenge to the Pennsylvanian skier. Even the name of our local ski resort, “Roundtop” pokes fun at this fact. There, the longest run is no longer than five minutes, and after three weeks I and my newly formed group of skiers ran out of new runs to try. So we decided to get creative to keep things interesting.
First we started skiing on the edges of the trails, realizing that the snow covered rocks jutting out of the snow formed small, makeshift jumps. That kept us occupied for a week or so, but we soon began looking for our next adventure. We tried racing each other through the trees between trials, skiing backwards, and jumping off the lift when it came close the the ground. Once, we even had the bright idea to line up at the top, take our left ski off and send it bouncing down the slope. We then raced each other down using our remaining ski, left boot, and two poles in the most convoluted race ever conceived.
To help prevent teenagers from resorting to such extreme measures to keep themselves entertained, Roundtop put in a park. A marvelous hill, littered with jumps, rails, boxes, and countless other wonderful ways for our teenage heads to make poor health decisions. Here we spent the rest of our season, learning to go off of jumps.
After a season of doing this I learned something crucial. When you are leaning over your skis, hurtling towards a ramp in the snow, everyone arrives at a point where, no matter how you try to stop or slow down, you are going over the other side. It’s at this point that every skier is faced with a split second decision. The rookie response is to turn their skis sideways in a desperate attempt to slow down at the last minute, all the while sending up a frantic prayer. But I have learned instead to lean forward, crouch low in my boots and, arriving at the edge of the jump, leap.
In my life, I’ve found the method to successfully skiing off a jump and stepping out in faith to often be quite similar. They require me to commit. To lean into my challenges, crouch low in my boots, and leap off the edge, praying God catches me on the other side.
I admit, however, that I am occasionally met with what seems like an impossibly large ramp. Right now that’s fundraising. A task so large I have begun to see it instead as a wall, sitting squarely between me and the mission God has called me on. Each time I sit down to write fundraising letters, post an update on Facebook or even finish this blog post, there it was, mocking me as I walked away from the keyboard once again.
But God has recently reminded me of a truth he taught me through skiing. Sometimes the safest thing to do is head full speed toward the edge of the ramp, jumping at the edge and sending up a frantic little prayer of my own. Because it’s in those moments He lifts me up on wings like eagles.
