In My Mind

I've been thinking about persistence again today, and the lies I've been believing. If I'm going to be honest right now, I've been struggling for quite awhile. It's the lies running through my head that have been crippling. Luckily, God has been turning things around, especially today.

What has been crippling me? The belief that God never really changed me, that it was all a lie and I can't be that person He has made me to be. So I've been "drowning" in shame and fear. I've been telling myself again that I just can't do it. I can't make it. It's time to give up.

Do you remember this, Becky?

That was me crying and screaming. I was so crippled by fear that I was too afraid to paddle, and went the wrong way down the rapid. Why was I so afraid? I'm not sure if it's an exaggeration to say I almost drowned right before then. I had an accident. I flipped on the rapid, the current took me way ahead of everyone, after going under and taking a big gulp of water. I tried to cough it out after being dragged by my kayak with the strong current. My hair was caught. I kept trying to cough out the water from the back of my throat, but since my hair was wrapped around something on the kayak, my head was stuck leaning back. I kept coughing the water straight back into my mouth. I was screaming at the top of my lungs but no one could hear me.

When I calmed down enough, I unwrapped my hair, and coughed out the water. People got past the rapid, caught up with me, and helped me back into my boat. I was shaking for quite awhile afterward, between the chilly water and the adrenaline rush from my panic. We all took a break and rested, but once I heard the next rapid was named Waterfall Rapid and was the biggest one on the trip, I panicked again. I didn't want to go down anymore rapids. All I could think as I approached it was, I'm going to flip again. I'm going to die. I can't do this. I'm going to die.

Needless to say, I got through it. I was fine. Russell and Erin reassured me. They told me it was all a fluke, it wasn't going to happen again, I knew what I was doing, I was fine. As soon as I believed that and started thinking rationally again, I was fine. I knew I could do it. I had been doing so well the whole time. As long as I let myself believe that I wasn't good enough, that I couldn't do it, and that the rapids were too big an obstacle, I was crippled. I wouldn't even paddle. I wouldn't even try.

But it was a lie.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17