I saw an adorable video. A little girl was celebrating her seventh birthday at a local gymnastics gym. She was hanging from a very high bar that was travelling across the room over a foam pit. The video was in slow motion, so I could see her little face getting a bigger and bigger smile as she anticipated that drop into the huge pile of foam rubber chunks –and drop she did! I can’t believe that tiny little thing had the guts to hang by her hands unassisted and unharnessed all the way across that huge room! Well, maybe I can believe it; she knew that no one who loved her would let her do it if it was unsafe, and falling into the bouncy foam pit was the fun finalé for her!
When I was about twelve years old, my friends and I would crawl under the chain link fence around the local high school’s track. Then we would run and hurl ourselves into the air in flips and land in the foam pit under the pole vault. We were totally unafraid and unabashedly daring, because we knew that no matter what, we would have a soft landing. If someone asked me to flip myself through the air and land safely on my feet, I wouldn’t have known where to begin! But there was something about that super soft landing that made me feel as if I could fly.
That tells me that we’re not afraid of flying…we’re afraid of falling hard. Imagine how high we could go if we had no reservations or fear of falling. It’s not the lack of ability that holds so many of us down. It’s the fear that we don’t have a soft place to land in case we don’t make it.
We always have a safe place to land. I didn’t say soft…some early attempts can land pretty hard. I said safe. If it’s something we’re passionate about, it’s amazing how hard we can fall and still want to try again and again. Soft landings simply mean there’s no resistance. Soft landings don’t increase strength, nor prove the strength of your passion. But safe – safe means we are still able to try again if we choose to and get stronger along the way. It means we’re still alive. Eventually, soft landings get boring. They give way to passions that may be riskier but motivate us to bigger and better accomplishments. Our passions raise our bar of what “safe” is. For me, I used to think that if I could still schlep my way across the stage after falling or getting injured, I was safe. Dancing was my passion, so I set my bar for “safe” very high. Maybe it wasn’t always the wisest assessment, but it was my passion, and it worked for me. In hindsight, I do not advocate doing this, but it proves my point. We will put up with a lot more if our true passion is motivating us.
Let’s go back to the little girl. When she finally let go of the bar, she fell with as much glee and satisfaction as if she had done a double flip and stuck the landing in an Olympic competition. The falling was just a part of the process, a big part of the experience, and definitely part of the motivation to do it again! I only saw that one attempt on the video, but I am positive she did it over and over again!
When we have a passion to use a gift that God has endowed to us, He is a part of that motivation to try again. He is the foam pit that bounces us up to the surface. We may not always be smiling like an adorable seven-year-old child as we make yet another attempt, but with every honest effort and knowledge of Who is catching us, we get another “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Until we are either called home or called to change things up, every attempt can be made unafraid, because we always have a foam pit to break our fall.
Dance on.
Grace Notes 