And There Before Me Lay a Chasm

I remember standing what seemed like a thousand feet high above solid ground on a three foot by three foot square, harnessed and attached to a bungee. The purpose was to jump, to defy logic and bound through the air towards concrete knowing that inches before I cracked open like an egg that rolled off the counter to the floor, I'd rebound and the elastic chord would shoot back toward the heavens, a human yoyo. All of this for fun. Yet when my feet found their heels attached to the remnants of what was solid and their toes pinching only air, somehow, they weren't so sure it was going to be much fun. What human in their right mind ever chooses to drop off any cliff? Life though, is so full of cliffs. One day you are meandering through meadows, bluebirds bantering back and forth and honeybees sipping cotton covered clover. Then you turn around and there before you lays a chasm. We even know they are coming. We're taught to expect them. Jesus promised them when he matter of factly mentioned, "In this world you will have troubles." But still, like the frigid waters of some wild mountain river they suck the breath from our lungs and render our limbs numb with shock. Some are greater than others--the ones that when you dare look down to see if perhaps you might find some way across, or over, or through, you see no bottom. No floor. No end. Then there are those that at first glance appear not much broader than perhaps your most intense running stride. You can jump them. You can swing over. Somehow you manage. And once across, you wipe the nervous sweat from your palms and exhale deeply. "Shoo. That was a close one. Thank God we made it through." But those deep ones. Those long ones. They remind me of the Mediterranean Sea. When the boys and I look at that body of water on the map it seems so small. Yet to the Grecian fisherman standing on her shore, The Mediterranean does not appear to have an end. He can't see the other side. That's what the long cliffs are like. They're the ones you face when the doctors tell you she's a beautiful girl with so much hope for the future, but she'll never stand upright in her adult years--some rare disease has moved into her body and refuses to leave. I listened to a man tell this story just today. Or the orphanage that has enough food for the over 100 children who call it home for only one more week. Then next week comes. Autism. Your major supporter has dropped you. Stage 4. HIV positive. No work tomorrow. Another lay off. I don't love you anymore. The teenage child who looks into your eyes and says, "let me live my life." Alcoholism. Chasms. Deep, deep chasms. And no human in their right mind would choose to drop from one of those precipices. They wouldn't. But they come anyway. We can't stop them. Part of the curse, yes, but knowing that doesn't make navigating them any easier. When I was preparing to bungee jump a too-skinny, grey faced man in baggy blue-jeans gave me clear instructions. I thought I understood them until I reached the crest and looked down. In that moment I remembered none of them. "One. Two. Three. Ma'am? One. Two. Three." "Don't count," I told him. "I'll go when I'm ready." And I did. I jumped down into that darkness. Not because I wanted to anymore. Not because I thought it would be fun anymore. Not because I thought I'd be better for having done it. Only because I'd come that far--there was really no turning back. And only because I believed the chord would hold. It had been strong enough to hold someone twice my size just minutes before. It's that way in our lives too. We've come too far to quit, too far to stop when we see just how dangerous life can be. And The Anchor will hold. I've found that to be true. He promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." "I will be with you until the end of the world." So we jump. Jump head-long into the realities of our lives--the chasms, whatever they are--knowing now how things will end up, but to whom we are harnessed. And we trust that His strong right arm is enough to carry us home. And it is on these truths I stand before the cliffs in my own little world. sometimes remembering all the other stuff doesn't matter. What matters is knowing we are held-firmly--by a God who isn't in the business of dropping those whom He loves. "Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." Psalm 91:14-16