Friday, December 21, 2007

The Jumping Off Point

Have you ever been cliff diving? I went while I was still in high school, you know...youth group age, when I was still bold enough to try something as wreckless as plunging 30-feet-down, feet-first, off a cliff into frigid water.

I recall scaling the slippery rocks of the cliff, clad in my bathing suit and bare feet, waiting in a small line of others my age for my chance to jump into the unknown... I got to the ledge and I had one or two people ahead of me. I watched them each in turn, give a whoop and a yell and jump out from the ledge before they fell away and disappeared with a splash into the dark, cold water.

Too soon it was my turn. People were telling me not to chicken out, "You can do it, come on!" and pressing me closer to the edge in their eagerness to take their turn. "It's easy, just don't think about it too much!"

I took advice on holding my breath, jumping out away from the cliff and on how to point my toes. I knew that if I stared down at the water too long I wouldn't want to jump. There was no turning back. So I gave a leap and a scream, held by breath and jumped out into the air....the water rushed up before me and I remembered to point my toes. The trip from the the ledge to the water was the most thrilling 3.5 seconds of my life. I still remember that day. It was a feeling that left me feeling alive.

There are different jumping off points in our lives. These points are times of inevitable change. Some changes are by choice (getting married), while others are thrust upon us by surprise (injury or illness). One minute our lives are predictable and comfortable, the next they change forever. Some of these points herald momentous occasions in our lives. For good or bad, all changes force us to grow and adapt who we are into who we will become. How we face them speaks to our character and the source of our inner strength. Who we become is up to us.

Sometimes change is gradual and there is time to think and to process what's happening, other times we are in shock, and experience a rollercoaster of emotions.

As I plunged beneath the icy water of the mountain's gully that day, I was instantly surround by numbing cold. The moment I felt myself stop my decent, I began clawing and kicking for the surface to return to the warmth of the air, and the companionship of my friends. I knew that they were there waiting for me, and that at the surface I could breath again. Kick for the surface and breathe.

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