Lessons from the Mountain

I started snowboarding longer ago than I’d like to admit.  Mostly because I still suck!  A few pretty intense injuries have caused me to board with some degree of fear.  I love turning toe side but whenever I turn heel side I tend to put on the brakes, the fear has created a habit that is both exhausting and rips the fun out of the sport. 

I was just in Breckenridge with a group of friends.  One of them was watching me and made an observation, she told me that I kept putting on the brakes.  I knew this, but I was not really doing anything about it.  She encouraged me to make wide turns and stop putting on the breaks.  Sounded easy enough, so I figured why not give it a try.  A few words of another friend also came to mind as I was trying this out, “You’re not actually going that fast”.  I began working my way down the mountain repeating to myself, “you’re not really going that fast” and “don’t you dare put on the breaks” I was improving, and more importantly I was having fun!

Is this not what we do in our everyday lives? Have past injuries not created similar bad habits? My bad habits have in similar ways held me back in my everyday life; my fear has caused me to freeze.  I have fallen into the same rut of braking whenever I find myself in that familiar moment of fear.  Well folks, I’m done with it!  The mantra of the mountain stands true, you’re not going that fast, and don’t you dare put on the brakes!  Life is far more enjoyable if you step out of fear and choose to live, I trust that God will lead me and won’t allow me to go too fast, he will be my brakes.  I don’t believe this means that life will be easy, but I trust that God will catch me when I fall; he is just like the soft and forgiving powder!