Sunday, December 10, 2006
I live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as of a week and a half ago. After 23 winters in the fickled weather of Tennessee, with 4* ice covered roads one day and 67* tank top weather the next, it’s a beautiful consistency of snow-packed mountainsides and liveable degrees from below zero to the thirties.
I like it here. And talk about a different culture. Steamboat relies on skiers for the winter season to load the free buses, to fill the packed bars, to occupy seats on the lift. The other day as I was sitting in the mountain’s coffee shop, Gondola Joe’s, sipping away at my caffeine and watching person after person awkwardly walk by with their ski boots securely fastened, I realized that skiing/snowboarding is a completely exclusive sport. One can only participate when the weather is dumping snow, where there is a hill or mountain set up for its purpose alone, if they have the money for the equipment and ski lift, etc…so basically, only if the weather, local, and money are right. Different culture, indeed…I grew up running around bases at the neighborhood softball field, shooting a rubber ball into a plastic hoop in heat, snow, or rain, and jumping into anything that contained water to swim about. I don’t think I was made to be a skier. My childhood and a little tree bumpage almost 2 years ago have helped me come to that decision.
But even if I wasn’t made to be a skier, benefits from jobs I have here in Steamboat have given me a free ski pass and free ski rentals for the season…so the weather’s right, the local is perfect, and the price has never been better. With all my fears and understandable insecurities about putting my feet back into skis, it’s hard to say no to this exclusive sport when it seems to be including me quite nicely at the moment. So I skied. It was last Thursday morning, December 7, 2006, when I did something I swore I would never do again. And I did it for 2 ½ hours. My friends here have been nothing but patient, encouraging, understanding, and fantastic teachers. I flipped out on Graham probably 6 times throughout the morning, and he just continued to emphasize breaking, turning, and that falling on your ass is absolutely acceptable, especially when trees are in sight (even if it’s just about impossible for me to hit them). And so the slopes did not beat me down that day…they could sense my fear, saw the light beaming from my scars just as Harry’s does when Voldemort has power, but the slopes respected my fear and scars.
I’m pretty sure this is a milestone. The day, the actions, the going down hill with white stuff surrounding long sticks on my feet was more significant to me than most will realize (but there are definitely some that will grasp its importance).
This past week has allowed me to revisit some of those ugly emotions that resulted from the time I thought I was a badass skier in Indiana: anger, confusion, apathy (that was encouraged by morphine and percaset…not now…then), doubt, etc. God allowed me not to dwell in these feelings in the past couple days, but flooded them by like a bad memory to reemphasize that life is shit at times, but he has overcome. Jesus says it with a little more class in John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” These words hit me like a ton of life-giving bricks this morning. In all my fears, my insecurities, my moments when life is shit, Jesus still bids me to come and rest, and to find peace is his victory over fears, insecurities, and moments of shit.
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