Bonding on the go--

Nick Ham the Man

There is a deep respect developing in me for the act of hanging over the side of a cliff, seeing my feet dip into the abyss of thin air. 

Normal couples go on normal dates; bond over nice dinners, ice cream, and walks and...I don't know, normal things! Nice things. 

When Nick Ham and I climbed at Smith Rocks in mid-March, we bonded over five pitches of cold climbing at early o'clock in the morning. Not that we haven't bonded like normal people. We love to share the veggie torta sandwich at Graze on 9th Street, we have gone to the movies, and we ride bikes together. We're normal! 

But there is just nothing else that can make you decide whether you really want to be with someone until you're attached to them by a thin rope hundreds of feet up the side of a rock. I held his life in my hands, he held mine. For three hours. Not normal. 

For my entire life, I can't remember being afraid of heights. There was only one incident at Silverwood Theme Park where I rode an apparatus obviously designed by a schizophrenic that had no belts to keep me secure in the tiny metal egg that spun into the sky and then plummeted to the earth- repeatedly. I wrapped myself in a death squeeze around the steel bar that locked loosely across my lap, making funeral preparations in my head. After that, I swore I'd never go UP again. God could not have gotten me back on that ride. Brad Pitt could not have made me get back on that ride! I was the most pissed off 11-year old in the park that day. 

But then I started climbing real rocks around my freshman year of college, allowing a real human to hold me inside the hypothetical egg-cage of protection, dangling on the end of a rope like a yo-yo. Humans are not as strong as steel bars. And I have said a lot of prayers over the years while glued to the side of a boulder. 

As Nick and I moved up the side of the cliff, I was gently suppressing the panic that would bubble to the surface of my heart each time I lost sight of him ahead of me; each time I tied myself into the end of the rope to begin climbing another pitch; each time I looked down to the ground, so far away from me. 

We had just begun our fourth pitch when I overestimated my ability to make wise decisions about foot placement (and my ability to make wise decisions in life, deciding with a clear mind to follow this wild man wherever he may roam!) and my foot slipped. I swung into nothingness and profanities flew from my mouth like birds. 

After the echo of all my cussing had stopped reverberating and ripping holes through the ears drums of climbers a few hundred feet beneath us, I put my hands back on the rock and heard Nick above me (& very out of sight) say, "No worries! You got this." He was calm as a sleeping baby up there! Toting me on the end of a line, secure in his steel-bar strength. He knew what was ahead of me, because he had already climbed up before me.

I figured out I really would rather be dating Nick that day than anyone else. I also have figured out since that I can trust God with my life. Because He has gone before us, He knows us deeply and the challenges we will face. There is no fear in this life, because Christ has raced ahead and is calling down, saying "No worries. You got this."