Fear and Triumph

I learned years ago that fear can completely paralyze us. I learned it from a four foot ramp built for jumping bicycles. It seemed like it was the highest thing that you could possibly launch a two wheeled vehicle from into the great abyss of nothingness. I sat on the seat of my bike watching as my friends made jump after jump from that wooden monster feeling like I couldn't.

After being taunted by boy after boy I decided action was necessary. I aligned my flying bike in the right place, took a deep breath and started peddling toward the ramp. I still remember my heart pounding, my mind racing, my instincts taking over as I went up the ramp. Then I did the stupidest thing that you can do. I hit the brakes.

I skidded up the ramp until at the top the bike flipped off the end of that ridiculous wooden ramp and I landed on my face at the bottom. Boys can't cry in front of their friends no matter how much blood you spilled, how bad you hurt, or how embarrassed. So I went inside our home and sat on my bed leaving my bike and hurt feelings laying at the bottom of the ramp. It was that day that I learned how you stare down fear.

It was that particular event that taught me when you are afraid of something you can own it or it owns you. Those are the moments that make you or brake you. It was then I learned that when things scare you it's time to try it again, and do it better the second time. So I rode at the ramp and didn't hit the brakes, landed on the other side terrified but triumphant.

Years later I stood at the bottom of an old telephone pole on a ropes course feeling the same butterflies I felt when I was a child looking at the bike ramp. It wasn't pretty, graceful, or courageous looking as I made my ascent to the top of the pole, but the victory is in taking each step when you're scared to death. Ramps and used up old telephone poles don't get to beat us.

In life, the things that scare us deserve for us to stare them down and beat them, and when we land at the other end we're triumphant. Our Savior prayed in a garden that there was another way than the path that led him to the cross, and in the end, he owned our sin and shame on a wooden cross that could not conquer him. Thanks be to God that on the other side, because of His Son's courage, we end up triumphant.