Letting Go: Lessons from Church Camp

As a kid I was an avid church-camp-go-er.  And when I say avid, I'm talking full-time, over-the-top, teenage-hobby kind of avid.  Each year when school let out I began to feel the familiar excitement bubbling up at the thought of packed suitcases, familiar faces only seen during the summer time, lively worship teams, and challenging group activities.  I can't recall a single summer growing up when I did not attend church camp, and some years I even went to multiple weeks of camp!  Then when I was old enough, I started volunteering several weeks each summer, and when I was 15 I even worked as summer staff at Butler Springs Christian Camp. 

As you can see...I am a true church camp addict.  I. LOVE. CAMP.

If there is one truth I learned from all of my time spent at camp through the years, it is this:
Letting go is never easy. 

In all honesty...I'm sure I have learned many noteworthy things at camp from all of the well-prepared speakers, correlating breakout sessions, and counselors who volunteered their time.  And I'm sure many of those lessons are much more profound than what I am about to delve into (profundity is overrated anyway).  But for the purposes of this blog post, let us pretend that the above truth is, in fact, the one thing I have learned from my countless days spent at church camp.

Perhaps one of my favorite things to do at Butler Springs was the giant swing, which is a pretty good reflection of my love for thrill and adventure.  The giant swing is, well, a GIANT swing.  It sits on the side of a hill and consists of thick cables that are attached to massive trees high up on their trunks.
Here is how the whole process works:

Step 1: Get your shaky limbs securely into a harness. 

Step 2: Someone very qualified connects your harness and carabiner to cables attached to the trees mentioned above.

Step 3: Your harness is then attached to a thick, rope-pulley system and is held in place using...can you guess? YOUR HAND.

Step 4: Using the rope-pulley system, a group of super-strong thirteen-year-olds pulls you high into the air until you yell "STOP!!!"

Step 5: Let go.

This little guy had his group pull him to the very top.  Here is a picture just before he he let go! Can you find him way at the top?

After letting go, there is a second or two of total free fall before the cables catch you and you go swinging out over the side of the hill.  What an amazing view!  Of course, I always wanted my team to pull me high, high, high.  Always to the very top.  And no matter how many times I put myself through this process, I always felt a slight hesitation when I got to the top.  Thoughts like, "what if my harness doesn't hold?" or "what if I don't let go?" and even "holy crap, holy crap, HOLY CRAP!" would begin to race through my head.  Doubts crept in and knuckles whitened, a sign that I was holding that small piece of rope way too tightly. 

But you know what?  Every time I let go, I was firmly caught by the well-designed system of cables and harnesses.  It never failed!  Despite this perfect track record, I still wrestled with doubts and fears about what would happen if I let go, even though I ultimately knew that I was safe.  The ropes would hold.  I would live. 

However, our brains and our hearts are very distant relatives, don't you think?  Head-knowledge is an entirely different species from heart-knowledge.

In our lives we all have things we desperately hold on to: past hurts, missed opportunities, forgotten relationships, unrealistic goals, etc.  We all know that holding on rarely does any good, and that it is truly in our best interest to let go and move on.  But no matter how many times we learn this lesson, it never gets easier.  Why?

Because letting go sucks. 

Without fail, every time I let go of that rope there was a brief moment when, free falling through air, I doubted everything.  I doubted that my harness would hold.  I doubted that the ropes were strong enough to catch my weight.  I doubted that the trees were rooted deeply enough to remain standing.  My doubt, however, stood like a dwarf next to the giant, incontrovertible truth that I would always be caught. 

And despite my fear, what happened next made the whole process worth it every single time.  Once the harness caught, I would go swinging out over the trees with the wind whipping through my hair.  YES!  I remember now!  THIS is the very reason that I let go in the first place.  The freedom and the exhilaration of flying made me forget the doubts that had racked my mind only seconds before. 

So now, I challenge you to do it.  Let go.  You will only free fall for a second and I PROMISE God will catch you every time.  Only then will you feel the freedom that comes from being firmly held in the arms of the Savior, totally uninhibited by the ropes and tangles of this world.  I would not, no...I COULD NOT live any other way.

Check out the entire video where the above picture came from.  I found this video on youtube and it was perfect for my blog post!