Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love is constant.
Psalm 107:1

I love roller coasters and water parks and I’m usually up for anything…except when it comes to rides that drop straight down.  Maybe you’ve ridden the Tower of Terror at Disney’s California Adventure or the Tower of Doom at Elitches.

I don’t ride these rides because

I find no fun in having the floor drop out from under me, thank you very much.

But a few years ago, we were at Great Wolf Lodge where I was peer pressured by my 7 and 11-year-old to ride The Wolf Tail.  {The “Just Say No” campaign of the 80s did NOT prepare me to handle being peer pressured by sweet little girls
birthed from my womb}

The rider steps into a clear, upright coffin where just a clear piece of plexiglass separates her from a 20-foot drop.  When the clear door to the coffin is closed, a loud pre-recorded heartbeat fills the tomb and the audio counts down…5……4…….3…..

It’s here, at 3, that I realize I am having a panic attack.  It’s too late to change my mind and in just a breath the floor is going to fall out from underneath me.

If I can’t depend on the floor beneath me, what can I depend on?  I realize that the only constant in that tube that will remain when I fall is the back of the slide.

And so, you guys,

I lean back into that slide so hard.

I WILL myself to become one with the slide.  I try to convince my brain that the thing that’s supporting me at this moment isn’t the floor which is about to literally disappear but that I’m being supported by what I’ve chosen to lean into.

I press every inch of myself into the back wall of my clear coffin
and the floor drops out from under me and I fall.

Life is like The Wolf Tail.

I think that it’s important to acknowledge that in this broken world, we cannot rely on nor trust the temporary, man-made foundations that we have created. We cannot stand confidently on our careers, relationships, bank balances, health, or any other temporary comforts we enjoy.

As we walk through life, these metaphorical floors are just a breath away from falling right out from underneath us. No matter what precautions we take, no matter how many Plan Bs, Cs, or Zs, we make, there will be times in our lives where it feels like the floor has been dropped right out from under us.

But there’s one constant in life, and that’s the love of God.  We can practice transferring our trust from the temporary to the permanent.  We can practice leaning into the love of God so hard that when that floor disappears, we still feel supported.

Shared with Permission, Christian Yoga Association Contributor, 2/7/19