The Amazing Race

(I just stumbled upon this story I wrote many years ago but never shared. I laughed re-reading it and realized that I am not quite as competitive today as I once was, but am still learning to live each day to the fullest in spite of my fears! I hope, in sharing this story, to inspire you to keep living big dreams!)

Many years ago, I convinced my husband that we should apply for the TV reality show, The Amazing Race.  The show takes teams of two and has them travel around the world following clues and doing whatever the clues tell them to do.  For each leg of the race, the last team to arrive to the pit stop is eliminated until at last the final victorious team takes home the million dollar prize.  I didn’t care as much about the prize money as I did about the thrill of the competition.  It was a crazy idea, but since I had gone along with some of my husband's crazy ideas throughout the years, he figured he owed me one and agreed to sign up.

The actual process of applying was quite lengthy, a fact which made me happy since I figured it would weed out the wanna-be participants.  We had to fill out a 20 page questionnaire answering everything from our greatest fear, to which celebrity people say we reminded them of  (in case you’re wondering, mine was Elaine from Seinfeld).  We also had to apply for a passport and put together a three minute creative video of why we should be chosen for the show.  

We decided to make our video clip as exciting as possible and had some friends who were willing to spend the day videotaping our “pretend” canoe adventure down the river which included, at one point, the appearance of us dropping over a huge waterfalls and coming up from the wreckage of our capsized canoe.  I don’t think we had ever laughed as hard as we did putting our video together.  Each Sunday night we would sit together and watch the next episode of The Amazing Race, imagining that we were there and feeling our pulses race trying to decide what we would do if we were in the same position as the participants.  It was the highlight of my week and led to some sleepless nights of imagining the thrill of racing around the world with my husband to places we had only heard about (oh, and beating the competition!).

I started dreaming about jumping out of a plane, one of my greatest fears, and wondered what it would feel like to conquer that fear if push came to shove (quite literally if you wanted to get me out of a plane!).  I started going to the pool to lap swim to prepare myself for the possibility of being dropped into the ocean, another fear of mine.  I knew my husband had fewer fears than me, and I definitely didn’t want to be the reason we didn’t win The Amazing Race, so I pushed myself to deal with my fears.  

As you might have guessed, we were never chosen to be on the show.  It was quite a disappointment at first, but then I realized something.  Just applying for the show had changed me.  My husband’s willingness to do something crazy just because he loved me, knowing how much it meant to me, is something I will never forget.  Hearing my heart beat inside my chest at the thought of doing something daring and crazy made me feel alive-- fully alive-- for the first time in many years.  

Applying for The Amazing Race made me look at life through a different lens.  It forced me to ask myself the question, “What have I been so afraid of and why have I held myself back from living life fully every day?”

What about you?  Are you living each day fully alive or have you given up on your dreams?  It’s never too late to wake up the risk-taker, airplane-jumper, ocean-braver inside of you and start living out who you were created to be.  

I double dog dare you!

Stay the course…

Sheila

Plant Your Flag

At the top of one of the most difficult mountains I have summited, is staked a flag. Each time I summit the mountain, a picture of the flag is taken as a symbol of my personal achievement. 

Someone ahead of me planted the flag a long time ago, yet in that breathless moment of exhaustion and excitement—I own the flag.

The astronauts planted a flag on the moon as a symbol of great achievement. Olympians carry flags representing his or her country to let millions of onlookers know the soil which holds the sweat of their individual achievements.

Flags are carried and planted by individuals who have taken ownership of something—something that is often of such value that a person is willing to risk his or her life in the process of staking the flag. Flag planting can symbolize both personal achievements as well as spiritual markers on our faith journey. A person willing to plant a flag is a person willing to stake his or her reputation on the cause or project connected to the flag.

We read an account of many heroes of the faith in chapter 11 of Hebrews.  Short accounts of flag-carrying men and women whose lives were spent clearing paths through difficult terrain, so that we might one day stake our flags next to theirs. Their flags were planted in faith, with expectation, and the ability to see with spiritual eyes something that was worth dying for, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. The did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.” (Hebrews 11:13)

Personally, I have planted my flag on a mountain of my own choosing, only to later wonder if my chosen mountain was worthy of my sacrifice. Sometimes we need to sit still and pray and wait for God to plant a desire within us of such conviction that when the climb becomes difficult we remain unwilling to turn back because we consider the cause worth the cost. 

One thing I have learned: we cannot manufacture the passion, desire nor commitment necessary to stake a flag on our own strength. Only God, through the gift of His Spirit, can ignite us and consume us with desires that, once planted, result in staked flags that point to Christ. We become conduits through which God’s goodness and glory shine as we persist in our God-given ventures.

If you, like me, remain uncertain what it is that your life is to be spent for—in other words—you haven’t felt the freedom to start up any particular mountain with a flag in your back pocket which must be planted whatever the cost—don’t be discouraged. 

Not every season of life is a plant-your-flag kind of season. Summiting a mountain requires preparation. Prayer, reading the Word, resting in God’s presence and learning how to hear His voice are necessary skills if we are to successfully summit our mountains. In these moments of preparation, as our spirits groan before God, His passions and purposes are planted in the depth of our souls while all that is not of Him is pulled up by the roots. This can prove to be a painful season but is necessary for what lies ahead.

We don’t get to decide the length of our preparatory season prior to planting our flags. It is for us to trust that the One who has called us is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21) 

Stay the Course…

Sheila