As I looked over the edge, I started to wonder why I had told my son that I would definitely join him in this endeavour. I am afraid of heights, and there is no guarantee that my jump was going to be done properly so that I would land far enough away from the rocks and in the deeper water. Each time I got enough courage to take the plunge, I backed off from the edge and went into another round of self-talk.<\/p>\n
Julius, you told your son you would do this with him\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n If you back down now you will forever regret it\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n But what if I slip on the edge and end falling into the rocks\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not young anymore\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not the athletic guy I once was (or at least that I thought)\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n Just think of the exhilaration of flying off the cliff and into the beautiful water\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n Think about the stories you will live to tell with the kids\u2026but I have to live\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n This summer I had the opportunity to share a special moment with a couple of my kids and go cliff jumping. I\u2019m no expert on cliff jumping, nor do I consider myself an expert on doing anything of the \u201cdare-devilish\u201d sort.<\/p>\n Many of us have had the opportunity to participate in something similar\u2014that stretches us well beyond our comfort zone \u2013 and we know that it will be something we remember for a long time. Maybe it\u2019s going sky-diving, or bungee jumping, or maybe it\u2019s something more relational like walking back into your old high school for a reunion and meeting up with old acquaintances, or moving to a new city\/town and making new friend relationships. Taking that plunge is a unique experience and for me; it almost became an \u201cout of body\u201dexperience as I willed myself to just jump off the edge.<\/p>\n We are entering a new school year, with firsts on the horizon and many new experiences await us. The time of year is all too familiar for those of us who have been doing this for a long time. However the unique combination of the new and exciting, with what we know should happen this time of year, is a bit like cliff jumping; we know how high it is, we know where we need to jump and how far out to jump but there are still nerves, still uneasiness, and still a sense of \u201cwhat might go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the beauties of a new school year, is that even if we decide not to fully jump in the metaphorical sense \u2013 the jump has to happen \u2013 it will come whether we are ready or not. So we can will ourselves, we can fake it, or we can jump in fully\u2026but it\u2019s definitely upon us. My hope and prayer is this year to be as exhilarating as a cliff jump, but also one that is as connected to God\u2019s vision as we\u2019ve ever been. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n There will be new building projects and old building issues,\u00a0 there will be more growing enrolment excitement and ongoing enrolment challenges, there will be many new faces to our community to welcome and embrace, there will be some among us that we will be sad to lose, there will be a new theme song to sing with gusto, and there will be a new theme song that will be tiring to sing in May, there will many athletic events that we win, and many we lose, there will be many presentations of learning that inspire us, and there will be many learning experiences that we fail miserably at, there will be field trips and launch events that we never forget, and there will trips and experiences that we never want to do again.<\/p>\n And ultimately we do know one thing is for sure\u2026our God is the same yesterday, today and forever!<\/p>\n C\u2019mon and join me\u2014let\u2019s jump!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I looked over the edge, I started to wonder why I had told my son that I would definitely join him in this endeavour. I am afraid of heights, and there is no guarantee that my jump was going to be done properly so that I would land far enough away from the rocks […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":3838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Taking the plunge<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Exhilarating Uneasiness<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
From Building to Launching<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n