- Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...
Thanks so much for joining me today for the conclusion to Tuesday’s Trench Lesson! Oh, how fun it is to laugh…at ourselves, and those things we’ve feared! Before you join me, and before I forget, I need to wish a very special girl who’s like a little sister to me a very happy birthday! Yvette Sanchez, I pray that your day is filled with love and laughter from memories that fill your heart for years to come! If any of you reading this know her and see her today, be sure and give her a birthday hug for me!
Grab your coffee and let’s get back to where I left off yesterday, which is at Knots Berry Farm, about two-thirds of the way into our day. Let’s go have a little fun with fear! :-)
So Dillan and Papa had just gotten off of Silver Bullet – Tyler wasn’t tall enough and Dillan says, “Nana, I want to ride that next.” I looked to where he was pointing and my mouth dropped, and I was literally stopped in my tracks! “Really?” I asked. He nodded his head adamantly.
“What, Dill, what do you want to ride? Show me,” Tyler jumped up and down, pulling on her big brother, begging to be included.
He pointed to a green track with loops, yes, plural, loops…now loops are not a real big problem for me but what is problematic is the speed with which the car goes tow
ards those loops and the direction it begins. See, it starts out backwards…ever so slowly, inching up, and I mean literally inching up a very high track, finally stopping at the tippy-top and for one-thousand one, one-thousand two and one-thousand three – yes, I counted – it stays like that, suspended in the air while you are hanging on for dear life, feeling as though you are half out of your seat, dangling and then all of a sudden…BOOMERANG! Yup, that’s what it does, at the speed of lightning, it hauls down the track, up one loop, then another, then up another hill, only to stop AGAIN, and then BOOMERANG, down the track…are you ready for this…backwards!
ards those loops and the direction it begins. See, it starts out backwards…ever so slowly, inching up, and I mean literally inching up a very high track, finally stopping at the tippy-top and for one-thousand one, one-thousand two and one-thousand three – yes, I counted – it stays like that, suspended in the air while you are hanging on for dear life, feeling as though you are half out of your seat, dangling and then all of a sudden…BOOMERANG! Yup, that’s what it does, at the speed of lightning, it hauls down the track, up one loop, then another, then up another hill, only to stop AGAIN, and then BOOMERANG, down the track…are you ready for this…backwards!
Now I just knew Tyler was going to say no way, Jose…so imagine my surprise when she declared, “Oh, I want to do that, too. I’ve never done loops before!”
Well, I just couldn’t disappoint either one of these precious people, so off we walked toward the line. I was expecting to have to wait for a long time, and maybe they’d change their mind, but nope, as luck would have it, we walked right up and only had to wait ten minutes. By the time I got in and sat down, and Tyler was right beside me, I was in full-blown panic mode, heart beating hard and fast, and loud too, mouth dry, body breaking out in a sweat…and then I tried something: I redirected my thoughts and you’ll never guess where I sent them? Scurrying towards scripture! And guess what I heard first? “Surely I am with you even to the ends of the earth.” (Matthew 28:20) I smiled and then froze inside. Wait a minute; are you saying I’m going to the ends of the earth on this ride?
I literally felt Him smile and say: No, silly; it will just feel like you are going to the ends of the earth!
By now, the people working this ride had come and put the harness down, and pulled up to check that it was locked. I looked over at little Tyler, as best as I could as the harness really makes it hard for your head to move – thank God! – She looked so brave, obviously quite unsure of it all but determined at the same time. I squeezed her little leg, smiled and told her: “We got this!”
As the ride began to move…or should I say creep backwards, I told her I loved her and returned to my sidetrack of scripture. As the car inched, and I mean inched – did I say it was going slow, like turtle slow – up the track, I racked my brain for more scripture, my eyes squeezed shut, a death grip revealed by my white knuckles on each side of my harness and one leg straight out, the foot up against the floorboard, pressing harder and harder as we went higher and higher…backwards. Oh, yeah, I thought, like I’m going to hold back gravity. I started to do Lamaze breathing, my mind racing back and forth from scripture to the present, from scripture back to reality…and my reality was I was literally dangling and we hadn’t made it to the tippy-top yet. I squeezed my hands tighter, my eyes were glued shut and the next scripture my thoughts landed on was “The Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like deer’s feet and He will make me walk on my high hills.” (Habakkuk 3:19)
Click…I heard a voice in the distance, “Evinda, you breathing?”
“Barely,” I gritted through clenched teeth – heck, everything was clenched on my at that point! :-)
And just like that, we dropped…down the track, up one loop, then another, and before I could catch my breath, we were climbing the last hill, this one not quite as long, but definitely as high, and again, BOOMERANGED into the air held by the track, going backwards…all over again!
We did it; we conquered it…and I’ll never forget what got me through the fear of that ride: HIS PROMISES! Not to mention the fearlessness of a ten and seven-year-old!
Until next week,
Learning to be fearless,
Evinda
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