Just Let Go

I couldn’t let go.

I was 20 feet up on a climbing wall – the first one I’ve ever tried – and I was completely frozen.

I didn’t want to keep going up because the higher I climbed, the scarier letting go would be.

But I was already high enough that I couldn’t climb back down.

So I was stuck.

I was harnessed to an automatic belay that would catch me within a second of letting go. All I had to do was let go of the wall.

But fear screamed at me not to let go.

The longer I stayed there, trying to let go, the more my fear grew.

My arms started shaking, first with fear, then after a few minutes with exhaustion.

My muscles started cramping.

I was sweating and my fingers were slipping.

I knew I couldn’t hang on forever and yet I couldn’t bring myself to let go on purpose.

Friends on the floor were shouting encouragement.

The guy running the climbing wall kept saying patiently, “Okay on three just let go. One … two … three!”

And still I held on.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.

I could not bring my mind to make my body do something so counterintuitive to what fear was screaming at me.

And in the middle of my overwhelming fear, as I clung to the wall, a thought clear as day, popped into my head.

Becky, this is your life. You say you love me but you have not surrendered your heart to me. You are afraid I will not be enough for you. So you try to hang on to control, but you are slipping. You are harnessed to me and you are safe but you don’t believe it. All you have to do is let go and I will catch you. Trust me.

All God is asking me to do is let go. To surrender my heart fully to His care.

But I’m afraid.

And as I had this God-moment 20 feet up on the climbing wall, I knew that despite my fear I had to choose to let go.

I didn’t want to fall.

So I squeezed my eyes closed, took a deep breath, counted to three.

And I let go.