Skydiving was an experience that is pretty simple to explain. It was incredible! It was mentality changing... well at least for a while, then I may need another drastic faith filled reminder lol. 🤷♀️ I was "scared" and thought I had lost my mind with the thought of jumping out of a plane 10,000 feet in the air (like most of the rest of my friends and family thought haha) BUT... I am so glad I did it! I am so glad WE did it.
This whole idea of jumping out of a plane came from my crazy husband who wanted to celebrate paying off our school Loans in just 2 years of marriage!!! You heard that right! Believe me it took many pep talks, paying off those loans was not the easiest thing to do considering I LOVE me some Target, Marshalls & Hobby Lobby. I am huge gift giver (which calls for money, money and more money lol). I wanted to decorate our first home and then we moved and I wanted to decorate our home now too (and it couldn't be exactly the same because they are different homes haha) that takes money, money, and more money...BUT thinking about getting a tiny bit closer to our massive dream of reaching our FIN and owing the good ole ETBU absolutely nothing felt so freeing too.
So we decided back in March of 2018 that we wanted to go skydiving to celebrate this big moment and goal that we had accomplished. I never thought we would actually go through with it haha 😅 Oh, but we all know the man I am married to...he is King of set the Goals and Achieve them 😂 💙
When we mentioned this idea of skydiving to our family they ALL said yeah let's do it!!! I was like wait crap we are actually doing this...!? ha. ha. ha. Emphasis on a very scared slow laugh LOL!! So, we set a surprise date to do it on Landon's older brother’s birthday back in September. By the grace of God the weather was too bad that day for us to jump! 🙌 God knew I would not have been even a bit ready I was still working on major trust/faith/courage issues in my own heart (mainly in my career...one of the biggest parts of adulting LOL) to think I could ever jump out of a plane for real. But since we had all bought our tickets already we took a raincheck date for June 14 this year.
So here we are June 16. And I can now say I have gone sky diving! WE have all gone sky diving! I think my favorite part about this bucket list check off memory is that it was one I got to make with my family! My Husband, Mom, Sister, her Boyfriend, Brother & Sister and Father in law all jumped out of a plane 2 days ago and I can't say the same for all of them but for me it has kept my mind spinning on lots of aspects in my life since the minute my feet touched back to the ground.
Then coincidentally on the van ride on our way to a choir youth trip this afternoon I was reading a chapter in the book we are reading for our summit leadership trip we are taking our kids to in July and THE ENTIRE chapter was about unlearning your fears. All I could think was that I was meant to read this chapter right after Skydiving so that I would feel compelled to share it with y'all. So here it is....
These were the best parts of the chapter from "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day" By: Mark Batterson. & My thoughts to go with it lol.
"Pushing through your fears, allows you to experience some of the most amazing memories. Imagine how many memories you will forfeit if you continue to run away from your fears."
"Live your lives in a way that is worth telling about."
"Accumulate experiences, not possessions."
^^^ My Thoughts ---- Save your money, pay off loans, or whatever debt you have now so that you can freely afford to go skydiving with your family and are not financially in debt, heavy with a weight of owing to someone else. Be a good steward of your money, I am consistently learning this concept haha. So thankful for my smart husband! ❤️ Experience crazy bold times with your family that you can all talk about to your children one day... I am so excited to tell our future kids that one day and see their faces when they realize their grandparents & aunts & uncles all accomplished fear and goals all at the same time ☺️
"Don't allow mental lions to keep you from experiencing everything God has to offer."
^^^ My Thoughts ---- God's creations are INCREDIBLE and all I could think of when I was falling into the sky (other than my queasy tummy lol) was that God made all of this! God made the air blowing all around me, the clouds I was floating around, the trees beneath us, the people and their intricate minds and creativeness that came up with the idea of free falling in the sky. I was in awe & adoration of OUR GREAT GOD!
"Almost like a hard drive with a computer virus, our minds have infected files. Irrational fears and misconceptions keep us from operating the way we were designed to. And if those fears and misconceptions aren't uninstalled, they undermine everything we do."
^^^ My Thoughts ---- I without a doubt was afraid of Skydiving because my whole life I have been around and heard people say that's crazy. If we were raised in a generation that said putting bat poo on your eye lashes was going to give you a disease none of us women would ever apply one streak of mascara to our eyes I can guarantee that. LOL but we weren't, wearing mascara is perfectly normal. I took "that's scary & that's crazy" advice from so many people that have probably never jumped out of a plane much less a diving board into a 10ft deep pool lol 😂 That was dumb! 🤦♀️ Now this next paragraph is kinda deep & personal but I am only being fully honest with you because I fully feel like that is what God has asked me to do. You never know who needs to hear the words of the Lord through you because they aren't truly listening to the words he is screaming out to them.
Landon and I are very planny people. I feel like I say that statement once a week haha! So, with that we made a "plan" when we first got married to wait 3-5 years to start a family. (With the knowledge that the Lord truly makes our plans lol). We chose to do this for many reasons. We have goals that we want to achieve first. We wanted to learn to live and love each other the best we could first. We wanted to be financially prepared, pay off loans, have a savings, get a SUV (that one isn't that important haha) and I mostly wanted to learn how to love God more and how to be a better person before we raised one of our own lol. Also, deep within my heart I have always feared birthing a child. (DUMB, I know millions of women do it every day LOL!) But, it is the full and honest truth, the idea of it all and the horror stories I have heard scare the crap out of me! Honestly, I have always loved the idea of being a pregnant, growing a tiny human, and the mind-boggling closeness I feel that must have to bring you to the Lord. It's the getting the tiny human out of my body that freaks me out lol.
BUT, jumping out of this plane and facing my fears, gave me a bit of a different perspective. Why have I allowed all the other horror stories I have heard and all the fear of the unknown scare me!? I am not saying that when the time comes along I am not going to be scared now... but that I will take a look at this idea of fearing child birth a whole new way. My situation of becoming a mommy will be my own. The Lord will make it what he wants it to be and I know that He will go before us in that process.
"Stop thinking human thoughts & think God thoughts"- you do this by filling your days with his word. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly"
"As we grow in a love relationship with God, we unlearn the fears that paralyze us and neutralize us spiritually. That is the essence of faith."
"Satan has two primary tactics when it comes to neutralizing you spiritually: discouragement and fear.
"When you put yourself in defenseless positions it sets the stage for God to show up"
^^^ My Thoughts ---- Not that you have to jump out of a plane to hear God speak to you LOL. I would hope not or I would be having to do that quite a bit lol. But that maybe you have to put yourself in a much different circumstance, an awkward moment or conversation to see God move or hear his voice. Apparently, I had to be free falling to the solid hard ground for him to get this message across to me lol 😂
"Some of your greatest moments could be your scariest moments"
^^^ My Thoughts ---- JUMP OUT OF THE PLANE. Take the big step. Trust in Him and His call for your life. Change careers if that is what He is calling you to do. Move your family to a different town if He is calling you there. Start a family, mend the one that has been broken for years, go on that mission trip, mention God to that same co-worker you have seen 5 days a week for 5 Years and never had the courage to share your faith with.
"Start doing things that are worth recounting in jaw-dropping detail"
^^^ My Thoughts ---- I felt like a stinkin' Famous person at church Sunday Morning lol! But it made me think what if when we did crazy stuff like this we always used it as an opportunity. We shaped it into a story to hear from the father!
Moral of the story. From a girl who jumped out of a plane herself but may not have the same experience as you would. It was freaking awesome!! The only scary part for me was when the door to the plane opened and the wind almost sucked off my eye brows off! The rest was amazing and the Lord used that moment where I was completely defenseless to speak to my heart then and now even hours later!
Love, Megan