(Catch me, I'm) Falling

It is the duty of every professed blogger to write about things they feel they should share with the world or things they think God wants them to share with other people, even if they aren't necessarily excited about doing so. This post falls into the latter category.

Telling people about an encounter with God always leaves me a little breathless with butterflies inside, slightly scared about the reaction I might receive and suddenly doubtful as to whether it really was as incredible and awesome as I thought it was. What if it was all in my head? is the question that plagues my mind whenever I want to tell people about the very real God who exists and is working miracles in my life. But that fear is a temptation of the devil, an attempt to keep me silent. So help me defeat the devil and read a cool story about the awesomeness of God.

Prologue

This story actually has a little bit of a back story. The day before this story happened was the day our half of camp was doing the high/low ropes courses, mostly located a short walk from the main buildings. They divided up the girls and guys; girls did high ropes first while guys did the low ropes and then we switched after lunch. The high ropes involved a lot of trust building and team work; the low ropes were involved again around trusting in the people around you, but also in communicating with your "community" (the people in the group with you that stood for your community back home), about how you needed them and what you needed from them.

We did a trust fall. There was a platform one of us climbed onto while everyone stood on the other side, waiting to catch whoever was falling. A series of commands had to be said every time. The "faller" had to ask Are you ready? and everyone else responded Ready!, then the faller had to say I trust you, to which everyone else responded Trust us, fall on!, which brings us to the last and possibly most important command of all. The faller would then say Falling! and then fall. If they didn't say falling, we didn't know when they might possibly fall backward off the platform and there would be the possibility of us dropping them. We carried off the trust fall without a hitch, not dropping a single person. After we completed the rest of the low ropes courses, we headed back to the chapel for a small group session before cleaning up for Mass later on.

During the small group, our summer missionary (Angelina) asked the girls to share a spiritual highlight of the day; a lot of the girls mentioned the trust fall and how it had made them feel. When it was her turn, Angelina brought it up too; she hadn't done the trust fall with us (she was overseeing it to make sure everything went smoothly), but said she loved talking people through it, seeing them overcome their fear of falling/lack of trust in their partners and most importantly, seeing the way communication impacted how all of the low ropes activities went for our group. She had this habit of being profound when I least expected it and this day was no exception.

She repeated the various commands she had had us say and emphasized the last one before telling the whole group how important communication about falling was. She told the nine teenage girls sitting around her that she, personally, was bad at communicating when she was falling, that she tended to tell people after she had already fallen and by then it was sometimes too late for friends and family to help her when they could have if she had been more open before. My community can't catch me if I don't communicate that I'm falling. 

Are you ready? - Ready!
I trust you. - Trust us, fall on! 
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Falling!

The Story of My Three-fold Miracle

It was early Friday (like 7-ish-am) morning in a small chapel in the mountains in Northern Georgia. (Do I still have your attention? Good.) Birds were chirping, sunshine was pouring through the windows and Jesus was there, present in the Holy Eucharist, as I prayed during the holy half hour that the summer missionaries had every morning, followed by morning prayer. I had been curled up on the floor in one of the pews - I am one of those people who likes to approach God with my head covered and my feet bare, preferably as close to the ground as possible - praying and trying to summon the strength to be ready for the day. I was chaperoning a group of youth group kids for a week at a Life Teen Camp and I was feeling emotionally and spiritually drained. Being around large groups of people I don't know didn't help either. I am an introvert which means on some level the entire week was a terrifying ordeal for me.

Morning prayer started and I pulled myself off the ground to a standing position. The missionary sharing my pew with me was already lending his breviary to someone else but he looked around and got another one of the missionaries to lend me their's so I could follow along. I prayed the psalms aloud, listened to the readings and tried to convince myself God could hear me. I knelt and sang in that chapel, surrounded by some of the kindest, friendliest people I had ever met who all believed in the same things I did, feeling completely alone. I listened to the people around me state their various prayer intentions out loud and asked God where He was in my life at that moment. Because I could feel nothing except an empty void surrounding me.

My question got answered by the guy on the opposite side of the chapel from me, two rows in front of where I was sitting. I didn't recognize the guy - there were two hundred and fifty people at the camp that week I believe, not counting the people who ran it - but I am going to remember him for the rest of my life. He spoke out clearly, stating his prayer intention: I pray for everyone with depression and anxiety, that they would feel Jesus' arms around them and know they are loved. (Note: I don't remember the exact words of the second half of his intention because I was so stunned, but this is pretty close to what they were.) I was astonished. I actually caught my breath, which I am sure the people around me heard. God spoke to me through the mouth of someone I never knew, never met and will likely never see again but He heard me in my moment of need and answered me. It was the first part of my three fold miracle. Thought the story was over? Wait. There's more.

Fast forward to that night and I am sitting at parish pow-wow with my fellow chaperone (Luke), the kids from our church and the summer missionary (Angelina again, y'all) who was assigned to our parish for the week. At the end of the day we asked the kids to share a highlight from the day and spiritual highlight if they had one. We were going around in a circle, stating what our favorite parts of the day had been. On my turn, I felt a prompt from the Holy Spirit, telling me to share what had happened earlier in the chapel with my group. I didn't necessarily want to. I wanted to keep my miracle to myself, between me and God, but I am so glad now that I listened to that voice in my heart.

Opening up to people is never easy. Telling people about your weaknesses and struggles is always difficult and opening up to teens is not usually something I am ever comfortable with doing. I stepped out in faith, shakily at first, not making eye contact and probably talking way too fast for anyone to understand me, telling them about my ongoing struggle with anxiety and depression, how I was feeling that morning in the chapel and finally how God had used someone I didn't know to speak life and love to me and let me know everything was going to be okay and that He was there listening. My burning desire to let the kids see how beautifully God can work through people overcame my fear of talking about myself as I told the story and I stopped shaking in my shoes as I finished. We were moving on to the next person when Angelina interrupted, saying she had something to add and that's when I got my second part of my little miracle. She said in the six weeks she had been going to morning prayer, it was easy to guess who was going to pray for what and that she had never heard that prayer intention until that morning. For the second time that day, I was speechless. If I had disregarded that voice in my heart, I never would have known that and the second - and third! - parts of my miracle wouldn't even exist. I thanked her for sharing and we moved on to the next person's highlight but for me, that night kind of stood still, that moment replaying over and over in my mind.

The next morning, I got the third part of my miracle. My partner in crime and fellow chaperone for the week was sitting next to me during morning prayer, and for his prayer intention, he prayed for everyone who felt alone. (Again, I don't remember every single word, but I remember how they resounded in my heart.) My community can't catch me if I don't communicate that I'm falling. I communicated, opened up when I normally would have stayed silent and God worked through two people (Luke and Angelina) who I hardly knew to continue my little miracle for me, a miracle that started with a guy I will never know the name of.

The whole experience was incredibly humbling and encouraging. I thank God I was able to accept His invitation to be vulnerable so He could show me the beauty in sharing about my weaknesses. I shared it with a good friend when I got back and then with my manager the next day and then I realized that despite my shortcomings as a human being and as a story teller, this story is too good to keep to myself and God wants me to tell people about it. Thanks for reading <3