Lori A. E. Barney's Blog

As I stumble (and I use that word loosely seeing as it’s the truth) through my walk of Christianity, I’ve come to realize we all receive crutches to help us along the way.

Some people were given scaffoldings, others were given those handy-dandy window-washing pole-fed machines, and some were even given a staircase.

Not me. (insert your image of Eeyore here, any will do they’re all the same). Sigh.

The ”crutch” God has given me, is a rope ladder. Yup. I said rope. And I said ladder.

Perfect.

It’s textured, I’ll give Him that.

The rope is thick, it’s made up of two individual three-inch strands twisted into one. The steps are also rope. It’s not one of those ladders with wood slats for steps either. Although, that would have been nice. It’s all rope!

Throughout my walk, some of these ”steps” have frayed and rotted, well; I should say ’weathered’. Yea, that’s usually a bummer for me, I mostly end up ’hanging around’ for a while until I’ve figured things out.

There have been times I’ve been able to knot them back up, pick myself up; and continue to carry on, just tell you though it can be quite a challenge. Grasping the rope with one arm wrapped around it and both feet on a rope step wobbling my whole body back and forth while feverishly trying to work with my frantic fingers (one limited due having to hold on, ohh a hovercraft, would have been a nice crutch also!) But then there have also been times I have chosen to try a shortcut to avoid everything I just wrote above then ended up three steps back down.

Remember gym class? When all those tiny little rope fibers release into your palms like cactus needles, and they burn because your hands are soaked with sweat due to the fear of sliding down and risking everyone else laughing at you, you grip so tight you think your bleeding? That’s me here.

This is where I started to learn that when I try on my own; I fail. But if I try with God in my heart carrying full faith in Him; I’m able to tie in the frayed step.

It’s a long ladder, but I know in time, He’ll turn into a staircase, I just need to hand Him over my frayed pieces first.