Leaps of faith

2 weeks ago now the staff of the school had a team building activity.  We drove up into the mountains and visited a site dedicated to that idea.  One of the activities we participated in involved quite a leap of faith.  Strapped into a harness you climbed a telephone pole up to a platform about  20 feet in the air.  Then we walked out onto a plank attached to the platform and had to jump across an open air gap to another plank and then back.  It was a pretty intimidating jump.  Saying you could do it and then actually finding the courage to jump once you were up there are two different things.  You had to really trust that the harness would hold you if you missed your jump.  In China that’s no small leap of faith. Things here aren’t known for their reliability.  

Starting off this semester we are meeting a few people who have just arrived in China for their first time.  Helping them sort through things brings back so many memories for me of when everything was new and overwhelming.  What it felt like to not understand anything and to need to ask for help constantly.  How truly foreign every last little thing felt, and looked, and smelled, and sounded, and tasted.  Coming to China was a huge leap of faith for me as I know it is for all these new ones coming in.  But we knew it was what He had asked us to do.  And the result has been a life more incredibly blessed than we could imagine.

Changing jobs this year and switching our children to the international school was another leap of faith for us.  I had no idea how we would like this new situation or if these jobs would suit our already busy lives.  I was concerned that our kids would resist switching environments yet again.  For children so young they have experienced so many changes in their short lives.  I always hesitate before adding more to their plate of new places and people to adjust to.  But again we felt the answer was clear and the path had been laid before us without question.  

And so, as we have done many times before, we jumped.  You would think that for all the times I have jumped before, the butterflies wouldn’t come anymore.  The shortness of breath, the sweaty hands, and the pounding in your chest right before you take the leap.  But no matter how many times I have jumped before, that last minute desire to hold on tight and not let go always comes.  Fortunately along with it comes a voice from the deepest bottom of my heart that tells me that every time I’ve jumped, He’s caught me.  And this time, He’s going to catch me too.  That resolve grows stronger with every jump because I can look back on the jump before, and the one before that, and the one before that, stretching farther than I can see .  And each time, even if it felt like He waited until the last possible second, He still caught me. The smiles on my kids’ faces these past 2 weeks has been a treasure to behold.

This year friends of ours will be making incredible leaps of faith; trusting God for the safe delivery of a longed after baby, trusting Him as they adopt internationally with special needs, trusting Him as they prepare to move to the jungle and work with orphans.  This week my sister will make a leap of faith and sacrifice her comfort for the needs of her family.  And sometime in the not-so distant future, my grandmother will make the ultimate and final leap of faith into the everlasting arms.  In front of all of us are the ledges, the jumps we aren’t sure we can make.  But still we hear that still small whisper telling us to trust and jump into the unknown.  And as His children, no matter how far down it looks, we can always jump when He calls our name.  Because, our daddy’s arms are big enough and strong enough and safe enough to catch us every single time.  

Deuteronomy 33:27 “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms”