Jumping

There's something to learn from climbing a post thirty feet in the air, standing on a 2'x2' platform, and getting ready to jump.

It's a leap of faith.

Ever since I can remember, I've been afraid of heights. Deathly afraid. I was the one who looked at a roller coaster and absolutely refused to even set foot in the line because, or course, it went way too high. Cliff jumping--never. Although, I did learn to climb up a bunch of rock to jump into the Snake River, though it always took me a while to make the actual jump. After that, I didn't have much of a problem jumping into water. But get me high above a bunch of very solid, very hard land, and I start to tremble.

I know I'm not the only one with this problem--I don't think it's so much a fear of heights, but more of a fear of falling. Without meaning to, I tend to picture what it would be like to slip and fall off a cliff or out of a tree, including the part where I hit the ground and smash into a million pieces. Not that that would actually happen, but my mind thinks it would.

That's why, when my singles' ward went to Clas Ropes Course down near Utah Lake, I surprised myself.

There are a lot of things I won't do:

• Drugs and alcohol are a never; it just makes sense.
• Bungee-jumping--what's the point?
• Kiss random strangers.
• Other things that don't come to mind...

Climbing hanging logs with notches in the side and walking along a narrow beam twenty-five feet in the air used to be on that list. So did roller coasters. I think it was when I hit sixteen that I decided life was far too exciting to spend it on the ground. Suddenly I was getting on every roller coaster I could. The Grand Canyon, always a nightmare for me, became the most exciting two weeks I could have spent on a river. But climbing up to a ridiculous height just to jump several feet and try to catch a ring? That still terrified me.

So why did I do everything I could at this ropes course? I really have no idea.

But it taught me something.

Sometimes, life gives you challenges that seem impossible. Really, though, nothing is. With the way the world is, sometimes you just need to jump and hope that the harness (or God, fate, friends, family, whatever) will catch you. Because you'll never reach that other tree unless you decide to take the first step out of comfort and start walking into the unknown. The rewards definitely outweigh the fear.

And it's easier than you think.