When I was in my late teens, some friends and I went to the lake in the mountains of Arizona. The place was unfamiliar to me. There were two cliffs that the others were jumping off of. One was a very high cliff that one of the guys actually ended up with a spine injury from. The shorter was about 50 feet high. That is the one that I went up to go off of.
The guys were telling stories of huge fish sitting near the bottom of the lake on the way there. I didn’t know how much of their stories were made up, but my imagination was filling up, and I didn’t like what was in there. The three of them jumped off rather quickly, but I stayed on the cliff, thinking it over. Pretty soon a bee came buzzing around my feet. I stepped away from it, but it stayed near me wherever I moved. Before long I was more scared of getting stung by the bee than jumping off.
So that’s how I finally took the leap. Recently, that image has come back to me, as I have put off jumping into something I know I have to do. It’s been on my heart for quite some time. God has let the circumstances get uncomfortable enough, so that I am forced to do it. I wish it didn’t require that, but sometimes it does. Right now, as much as I hate it, I am thankful for that bee. I hate speaking in front of people as much as being stung. When my thoughts, and the conversation inside my head, have gotten louder than what I was saying, it’s tripped me up a few times. For the last several years, I’ve been teaching community art classes to Kindergarten-9. One of the places that I teach has closed classes since last March. Now, my main teaching job is replacing paid teachers with volunteers. I understand their position as they run on donations. With so many businesses feeling the pain of Covid, that gets passed on. We’ve all had to make some kind of adjustments in the last year. I’ve desired to offer painting classes online to help people with stress, but have struggled with the whole speaking online thing. As a single mom, I’m getting ready to jump in out of necessity. It’s just another place to trust God.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2Cor. 12:9 ESV)
Then, when things seem really hard I think of and pray Mark 9:24,
Immediately, the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
(Photo from Pixabay)
Melicia Evans 