Talk about a leap of faith!! I can't run; but I sure can fly!!

     Over the years I've taken many leaps of faith;  It's been what has kept me going when I can't make sense of my crazy life.  In fact, this is where the name "Team Leapfrog" came from.   I always knew if I just believed things would work out; then they eventually would.

     But this day was one of the biggest leaps of faith I have ever taken. My cousin Keith somehow convinced me to sky dive, and I would be diving head first 13,000 feet into the clouds, uncertain of what would be waiting on the other side.  This was one of the scariest things I have ever done; but then I realized life is all about having faith, and not actually knowing what's on the other side of the clouds.

     As you can see, this plane wasn't very big; yet we managed to squeeze in the pilot, the two guys that soon become our Siamese twins (you can't see one of them), my cousin, and me. I imagined this was what sardines felt like... When it was time to jump I would turn around, get on my knees, then my tandem buddy, Bruce, would strap himself to my back, so tightly that we were almost sharing the same skin.

          We had gone through the drill ahead of time, so I knew what I had to do.  But when Bruce told me to put my foot out on the ledge and then I looked down, seeing nothing but clouds; I seriously wondered why I was doing this...

         Convincing myself to dive head first was the hard part...  But there was no turning back now; and I actually did it!

      In this picture below, you can see the plane is now above us; and at that point we were falling at 140 miles an hour, head first, towards the little blue and green ball they call earth.

     I had no idea what was going to happen next, but believed it would be okay... After all, Keith survived it many times before:)

     At this point I felt as if I was flying like a bird!  It didn't matter what my legs were doing; I had wings!!

     It wasn't long before I could see what was on the other side of those fluffy white clouds...

     From high up in the sky I could look down and witness God's beautiful creation!  And at this moment I hadn't a worry in the world...

          As we slowed down and hovered, thousands of feet in the air, I asked Bruce if the shoot had opened... when he confirmed it had, I asked him if we could stay up in the sky forever... But there were many others who had to experience what I had, so we eventually had to come back down to earth.

     But not before he let me take the wheel; and the loop-d-loops were better than any roller-coaster you'll ever find on earth.

     As we began to descend to our final destination, you can see once again, the clouds became a barrier above us; only now I knew what was on the other side.

     As we got closer to our landing point, I had just one last question of uncertainty; and that was what would happen when our feet hit the ground; we all know I don't run... 

     Amazingly, we came gliding in on our behinds, as smoothly as a bird landing on a piece of drift wood.

     From the very beginning Keith had no intention of letting me back out of this venture; and until this point he had no idea how grateful I was that he pushed me.

          Of course, this wasn't his first rodeo; he's convinced several others to take this leap of faith before me.  And now I would do this again, a million times over.  If I can convince even one more person to take this leap of faith with me then my job is done:)

Click here to see my sky diving video!!  Words can't even begin to describe it:)

Happy Valentine's day!


Christine:)