Cliffs

"God's command is enabling. Never has he given an assignment that was not accompanied by the power to accomplish it." -Elizabeth Elliot

So I've officially graduated (or rather, I've been officially graduated, apparently it's something that is done to you). And I feel a little like the rest of this summer is just me stepping closer and closer to the edge of a cliff. Digging my toes in, trying not to look down, but eventually I have to jump (fall?) off.
But I've also been thinking that this cliff eighteen years into my life cannot be the first cliff. There was a precipice the day I lost my first tooth. The day I got lost in Kmart. The day I learned to tie my shoes, the day I put my head under water for the first time, the days my sisters were born. The first day of school, the day I got my driver's license, the day I decided to take taekwando. When my dad became an elder, when we first (and second, and third, fourth, fifth) went to West Virginia, every single cello recital.
These have all been precipices I maybe jumped, maybe fell off. And who am I to say that this present cliff is somehow more important, more significant than the tooth-losing one? Than every other time I was afraid and had to trust, was walking blind and had to trust, was dying to something in myself and had to trust that God would raise me from the dead?
Our lives will always follow that pattern of dying and rising. And I wish I could get used to it, could love God enough to say not "Please be careful" but "Anything for you."

"To whatever he says my answer is Yes." -Elizabeth Elliot

How God works

'Well, you know, that is how God works,' I say soberly. 'He gave you all these things to trick you into relaxing a little so that in a few years he can really pull the rug out from under you.' " (Lauren F. Winner, Girl Meets God)

Which is exactly how I think most of the time. And it is a really good book, despite the overused title.