We were flying at 8,500 feet.
I had finished the three hour ‘ground’ course earlier that morning in the hangar.
Now I was sitting in a small vintage plane, wearing my jump suit and parachute pack, the side door was wide open, and soon it was show time.
Where do we get the crazy ideas for our bucket lists, anyway?!
To make things all the more exciting….I had selected an airport where bi-wing planes were used for skydiving. Lucky me. (sarcasm)
The jump instructor was seated behind me. “Step out”, he said.
I was frozen.
“Step out onto the wing”, he repeated.
What was I doing? I am going to stand on the lower wing of a plane, holding the bar from the wing above, while moving at approximately 100 miles per hour, 1 1/2 miles above the earth and suddenly let go on command.
Yep.
Briefly holding my stance on the outside of that plane, the instructor called, “Let go.”
So that’s what I did.
Free falling at nearly 100 mph, that mere 20 seconds seemed an eternity.
Exhilaration and fear played a compelling duet.
Then I reached my ‘pull’ altitude.
…
Once my chute opened I entered the beauty of ‘canopy’ time.
It was beyond breathtaking.
Floating gently down through the air, I watched as the clouds moved effortlessly beyond my reach.
I admired the beauty of the quilted patchwork of greens, the living earth below me.
The air was silent… and peace was tangible.
It was more than worth all the effort, the cost, and the fear combined.
This experience reminds me of how God’s love is for us.
…
What great cost He did pay for us at the Cross.
The pain and effort of moving into His death. His life sacrificed for our eternity with Him. All so that we could share a space in Heaven with Him, one day.
Our finite minds grapple with it. Trying to grasp the depth of His love.
The vastness of His Grace.
The opportunity to be in a relationship with us is His greatest desire.
It was all worth it to Him… the pain, the suffering, the price He paid for the gift that He offers us.
The gift of His Presence.
His Peace.
…
How then, do we find ourselves holding on to anything but this gift?
Why is it so hard to let go of things that we hold onto in this life?
Firmly clutching onto the notion that somehow being good enough offers any true reward. This twisted concept of love and acceptance that we perpetuate. The word ‘enough’ actually translates to ‘sufficient’.
But in this physical world, there is no means to that end ~ there is no sufficiency without Christ.
Countless years of holding on to memories of past experiences, old loves, toxic relationships.
Burdening ourselves with the should’ves, the what-ifs, and the if onlys gone by.
Thinking that somehow if we hold tightly, that this part of us, this memory could fill the void of loss.
That piercing pain we so desperately do not want to face.
Only the Face of Christ offers deep, and lasting comfort.
Not in the past, but today. Present tense.
In His arms we are wrapped in the warmth of His intimacy. He knows our hearts. The longings of our souls. And He waits for us to come to Him.
Yet, wearisome we continue to throw these emotional burdens onto our backs…walking through this world feeling lost.
Chaining ourselves to this physical existence ~ we wander here, desperately unfulfilled.
Our fists clenched, we reach for a stronghold in the storms and ravages of our lives.
Striving for order.
Struggling to gain a sense of footing.
Trying to reinforce our already skewed perception of security.
We despairingly search to find something or someone to hold on to.
The bottle.
Material possessions.
Relationships.
Food.
Our children.
And the list goes on.
…
All the while, He is with us in our darkness. He knows our pain.
Unlike skydiving, God doesn’t command us to “let go”.
He beckons us.
Gently whispering to our hearts.
But, in order to find Him, we must be willing to relinquish our grasp.
In surrendering, we find our Salvation.
For only Christ can hold us together.
Only He completes us. Only He can make us whole again.
And when we are willing to let go of this world, we can be held.
Revelation 21:5
“Behold, I make all things new.”
No matter where we are in our life.
In the heights of joy.
In the valleys of sorrow.
No matter how far we have fallen from where we want to be.
There is no place that He can’t reach us.
As we unburden our hearts, and leave all of our holdings at the Cross, we find His Grace.
The solemn joy that comes from our relationship with Christ.
Jesus takes us as we are.
Renouncing our relentless grip…
our hands are open to receive the newness that He offers.
The Glory of His goodness.
Yielding to His love, we find our resting place.
We discover respite from the fatigue of our constant holding on.
In a world that encourages mastery of control and manipulation of power ~
He reminds us that true Peace comes only in the letting go.
And being held in the loving embrace of our beautiful Savior.
My Sweet Louise 
Please share your thoughts.