Take the Leap: The Time Is NOW

I stood at the edge, my heart pounding profusely in my chest, my legs shaking in sync with the less than smooth swaying of the boat. I ran my hands over the life vest strapped tightly to my torso, for what had to be the tenth time. One question plagued my mind, “How did I get here?”

Here, to clarify, was standing at the very edge of a fourteen ft speed boat, in the middle of a 200 ft deep lake. There was one daunting agenda at hand in that moment; jump off of the boat. I faced this task while being completely cognizant of the fact that I could not swim.

“You’ll only be twenty-five feet behind us, and the worse thing that can happen is that it’ll flip over, and even if it does you won’t be in there too long. I’ll just circle back around and get ya. I mean, I know a good number of people who didn’t flip over. ” The captain’s words were meant to be comforting, but did nothing to calm my nerves. As a matter of fact, the specific detailing made my anxiety worse.

You see, this conversation was the culmination of an almost hour long internal battle. From the moment myself and family stepped onto the boat the captain relentlessly encouraged us to try an activity called “water tubing.” My initial response was, ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Nowhere in my carefully crafted vacation itinerary had I scheduled jumping off of a boat. If I’m honest, the decision to leave land in the first place felt like a stretch, considering that large bodies of water is one of my three fears. Yet still there was this niggling sensation in the pit of my stomach and it was accompanied by a voice that asked only one question, “what if?”

Food For Thought: Sometimes you will have to leap alone.

After an exhausting mental battle of logic/fear vs. faith, I rested on the decision that if my sister/best friend made the decision to jump, I’d jump too. Much to the satisfaction of my fear, forty-five minutes into the ride it was clear that she was not going to give it a shot and the captain had just said the window of opportunity was closing. I should have felt relief. The problem however, was that feeling in my stomach and the voice in my head would not go away. I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to try, but I was terrified.

Suddenly, and without my logical consent I heard my voice speak in a loud and shaky tone,”I’ll do it!”

In that moment, if jumping off of the boat could have saved me from facing the consequences of those words I would have, gladly. Yet it was too late, everyone had heard me loud and clear. To make things worse, before I could fully process what I had just committed to, the overly enthusiastic captain began to unravel the chains of the tubing seat. Each loop felt like a deeper level of my security being removed.

I recently heard a quote that I will perhaps carry with me for the remainder of my life, “the comfort zone, is the most dangerous place a person can be”. The longer I live and the more I become me, the more I see this as truth. I have learned that each puzzle piece of myself that I have dug up, retrieved and set in its rightful place has required me to step a little further out of my comfort zone and further into trusting God.

Becoming who you are means leaving behind who you were and that process Beloved, will require you to face your fears. The person you have always been has set specific limitations, borders and boundaries under the guise of keeping you safe. We’ve adapted the ideology of not venturing out too far, lest we can’t find our way back home.

Well, I’ve shown up today to debunk the myth. Who you truly are is not who you’ve always been. Rather who you truly are is on the other side of fear. Sit with that for a moment. Take as many deep breaths as you need to. I will wait.

Food For Thought: Who you truly are is on the other side of fear.

The Leap

I held my breath as my legs left the safety of the boat, collided with gravity and landed on the hard plastic of the inflatable seat. As the engine roared to a start I gripped the seat with both hands bracing myself for the worse. Sitting back, I quickly realized that I was safe, but not unscathed. I had injured my foot.

Allow me to interject to tell you that once you leap there will always be an obstacle set up to distract you from the true beauty of the moment. It is up to you how you respond.

I tried to pushed the thought out of my mind and willed myself to relax, knowing that if I looked down and saw blood I would panic. So I didn’t look down. I looked up and out. Instantly, the searing pain in my leg numbed as I took in the view. There was no hood, or covering like on the boat. I had a 360 degree panoramic view of the lake and the land surrounding me. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Food For Faith: The view is better when you leap.

I could hear God’s voice encouraging me to truly experience this moment, to live in the now. So, in full faith I let go of the handle, (one hand y’all, I’m not crazy lol) I threw my head back and screamed. To my amazement I heard the sound of my own childlike laughter bubble up inside my chest and burst through my lips. Joy. Bliss. Gratitude. Awe. Complete and total trust in God. Those are the only words that can commemorate that moment and even they fall short.

It was one of the most awe-inspiring images my mind had ever captured. While the proximity to the boat was so close, merely a few feet, the view itself was vastly different. It was a thorough and full depiction of a space that could only be experienced in-part while on the boat.

As I look back on that day, I realize that moment may very well be one of the most defining moments of my life. It has set a new precedent for how I approach fear. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had stayed on the boat. While I can’t be certain, if I were to take a wild guess I believe that day would have been defined by a single question, “what if?”

In my mind the safest place to be was land. However, in leu of my then current circumstance the boat seemed like a pretty safe second option.
In hindsight, the boat was my “comfort zone”, a stagnant place that provided a false sense of security and the lake represented an endless sea of opportunities. It was the life vest however, that caught and held my attention. It is the perfect representation of GOD. Always with us, always steady, always secure and even if our leap causes us to fall, He will keep us afloat.

My encouragement to you today is to take the leap, whatever that may be. THE TIME IS NOW. If God is the one leading you, jump confidently, knowing that He has your back.

As an additional resource, I’ve added in the song below. Take a moment and really listen to the lyrics.

Soul-Care, FaithI Am Nseandra .July 7, 20212 Comments