When Faith Feels Like Dying

You'd think I'd be used to it, having family that's done this before. No trepidation, no hesitation, just a let's-go-get-'er-done mentality. 

And I do. I really do. 

But makes it a world of difference when you're purchasing your own ticket for half way around the world. Makes it a whole lot different when it's yours and not someone else's. 

It's your world that will forever be changed. Not your dad's or your brother's or the widow next store. Your world. 

And what are you supposed to do with that? With all the unknowns and the less-than-ideal environment and late nights and early mornings and food you normally avoid here in the States- and that's not even the spiritual warfare and mental exhaustion and mountaintop highs and valley lows. 

By faith Abraham left. 

Up and left even though he didn't know where he was going. Didn't know what God was going to do. 

Sometimes faith feels like dying. 

Dying of yourself. Your dreams. Your control. 

I've never really admitted to anyone, but I'm scared of heights. I blame it on one too many times of siblings pushing me towards the edge of a cliff, then "heroically" saving me as a scream and flail. Take me to a mountaintop, and I will stay at least three feet away from the edge. Knees turn to jello and my stomach bottoms out. 

So when it's the two of us girls standing at the bottom of the climbing wall, looking up at the zip-line, she panics and says she's not going to because she's afraid of heights. 

Ditto, girl.  

But I lift my chin and say that I'm doing it- and she can, too. We climb to the top of the rickety, curving staircase, boards jutting out and slanting precariously. The attendant clips my line, secures my harness...

And I can't take my eyes off of that one inch wheel, just sitting loosely on the rope, holding me from sudden death. 

"Just jump," the attendant says, nudging me. I gulp. Jump? Really? Won't the wheel come off the track? I sit at the edge of the tower, feet dangling in the air. I clear my throat nervously. Shift back and forth on the platform, slowly inching myself off but hands still gripping wood. 

God, please don't let me fall. Please don't let me fall. Don't let me fall....

I close my eyes, suck in air, and grip the rope like it's my lifeline.

It was the most terrifying 45 seconds of my life. 

Faith is just that. Feels like dying. Feels like letting go and you're just going to fall and shatter every bone in your body. 

But faith feels like living, too. 

Wide awake, adrenaline surging, heart pumping, lungs screaming. Every part of you tingling, senses alert, soul flying. 

It's when you die to your control when you truly can live....whether it's here or halfway around the world.