I am at about 12,000 feet flying in wide circles over the drop zone at West Point. Since I am to jump in tandem, I go first. A skydiver with hundreds of jumps on his resume is attached to my back by 4 clips. At his signal we move to the open door of our small, but capable, Cessna. I step out under the wing, onto the support with my right foot and place a death grip onto a hook with my right hand. My instructor moves out onto the support half a second behind me. Once we get both feet out onto the support, it is time to jump!

Conversation does not take place under the wing of an active plane. The wind is fiercely loud and hearing nearly impossible. Communication happens with a series of taps on the shoulder, nods, and various hand signals. I considered changing my mind, but there was no way to communicate it to anyone. From that distance, it is plain that the earth is round, and clearly not meant to leave the feet of those who are born wingless.

I received the signal to jump. Almost bravely, I lifted my feet trusting my instructor not to lift his yet, released my death grip and crossed my arms over my chest. Another nodded signal: “Are you ready?” My soul screamed, “NO!” but she was ignored. My instructor lifted his feet and let go.
Sometimes God takes us on the adventure of a lifetime and we need to trust Him enough to lift our feet and let Him take the weight. We need to trust His experience, and trust that he already knows the answer to “Are you ready?” Often, when He asks us, our answer to that question is: “NO!” but what do we miss when we refuse to trust in His wisdom?
Wind rushes by pretty fast outside a moving plane and presses fairly hard against anything reckless enough to fall out. It blew our legs out from under us. At that point, I held my arms over my head in the “I give up” position, as I had been instructed, and that stabilized our drop so we fell belly-down to our deaths, rather than tumble uncontrollably through the air to our deaths. I am told it was in the instant when my feet left the wing support that I began to scream. I am also told I didn’t stop screaming until we reached about 3000 feet. I don’t remember.
I had been warned that the view would be spectacular and that many new divers forget to check their altimeter because of it. I had practiced reading an altimeter; I had practiced pulling a ripcord. I knew what to do, but no one can practice anything enough to perform under the influence of sheer terror. Suddenly, a large hand grabbed mine, guided it to my ripcord, pulled, and the chute opened.
Some of life’s adventures can’t be planned for or rehearsed well enough so that we respond with perfection in the moment. Planning ahead is good, but we do not have to be obsessed with how each and every situation will unfold. We have a Father who has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. We can always trust Him to guide us ahead when we’re too frozen to move.

In that moment, terror flaked away like little dead leaves blown about on a gentle breeze. We were riding with the wind, the howling in our ears stopped and everything was quiet. Riding under a parachute is the most freeing experience imaginable, unless you look straight down, which I didn’t do. I focused on the horizon. I could see clouds, and birds, and our plane in the distance. I could see tiny toothpick trees and roads snaking in all directions and leading to nowhere important. I could see a parking lot and then the building at the airport, and then the orange pea-gravel where we were supposed to land. My instructor showed me how to pull down with the straps to guide the parachute, so we did silent, wide circles as we neared the ground.

I had been told landing under a parachute was tricky. When you near the ground you enter an optical illusion. The ground is further away than it looks but you’re rushing toward it faster than it seems. If I wanted to end the jump safely I was to bend my knees and trust my instructor to hit the ground first. He had told me to keep my knees bent no matter how unstable the landing was. If I did not follow these directions specifically, I would ruin the jump with injured ankles.
I am learning that trusting our Father is very much like trusting my instructor during that jump. Sometimes I had to let go first and trust him to hold on. Other times, when the fear was too great for clear thinking, I had to rely on him to do what needed to be done. Then there were the times when I was allowed to guide the parachute, but then other times, I had to relinquish control and let his experience guide us to a safe landing. I made mistakes, but my instructor knew what to do to correct for those mistakes. I placed my trust in him because he had gone this way before, and he was behind me now, guiding me to a safe landing.

It is the same with our Father! Have you ever attempted to mark all the times in the Bible when He says He will be with us? He says it a lot! I think God tells us over and over again because we forget. We forget He knows everything there is to know about guiding us to safety and we forget to trust him to do it. We forget He is right there with us and will never leave us. Think of all the freedom we miss because we are fearfully looking for a way out of a tricky situation, when all we really need to do is relax, trust Him, and enjoy the view.

~A Church Member