Killer clowns and paranoia

‘Tis the season to find your inner child through the completely acceptable tradition of dressing up as anything your heart desires, no matter your age. It is also the season of willingly paying money to walk through a dark house filled with goblins and clowns bearing chainsaws who jump out at you from corners, giving you what feels like the beginning of a heart attack.

I cannot watch horror movies, and I am petrified of clowns. But for some reason, I love walking through haunted houses. There is something oddly exciting about knowing that at any second someone or something could jump out in front of my face, causing me to scream in fear and cling to whomever is nearest me at the moment.

Knowing it is completely fake, and each person causing me to break out in a cold sweat is simply your average Joe with some clown makeup on, dispels any fears of actually being cut up into tiny pieces by the clowns with the chainsaws. Besides, according to a study done by the University of Westminster, you can burn more than 100 calories just from watching a horror film. Imagine how many you burn walking through a haunted house.

Each year, Liberty University puts on Scaremare, a haunted walk through creepy woods and an old house. Clowns, masked figures, insane people and goblins terrorize those walking through. Thankfully, they are not allowed to touch you, but they sure love getting up in your face or whispering in your ear.

Always traveling in groups of about six or seven, this year a young gentleman joined my group after losing his group, or so he told us. Walking through the haunted house, he stayed in the front, pointing out to us any hidden figures ready to pounce. He seemed to know exactly where to go through the maze of hallways, and my friend and I began to speculate if he really lost his group or if he worked for Scaremare. We questioned him, wondering if this was all a plot to gain our trust before turning on us and terrifying us in some way or another.

Denying our accusations with a smug little smile and a shake of his head, he continued to lead us on, and we continued to follow him, not knowing what else to do but accept the inevitable Mr. Hyde when the time came. After all, we knew the whole thing to be fake.

Well, as it turned out, walking through haunted woods and a creepy old house heightens paranoia because the poor kid really did just lose his group. I wonder what was going through his head as we told him that, since we were convinced he was a worker, we would not come save him if a clown dragged him off into the woods in an attempt to frighten the innocent college students.

I think it’s interesting how often we do this in our everyday lives. In today’s culture, we expect the worst. We find it a normalcy to hear about people enduring persecution, someone getting shot in Baltimore or a patient dying of cancer. Not to say we just shrug our shoulders and say “such is life,” but it has become something that we expect in this day and age.

On the flip side of that, when something like a faith healing or the pope washing the feet of prisoners occur, we look for another explanation. The faith healing was probably a hoax, and the pope probably had ulterior motives for his actions. Because we are so used to forgery and evil, it is difficult to take off our rose dipped in poison colored glasses.

I wonder how often God just smiles and shakes his head at us when we don’t believe that he is doing something wonderful in our lives because we are too caught up in figuring out how the good is actually out to get us. I know I am guilty of doing this. God will bless me with so many good things, and yet I cannot enjoy it because I will wonder when the world will rip the rug out from under my feet, causing me to fall on my face once again.

God desires to bless us and provide us with situations in life where we are reminded of his grace and goodness. There is evil in this world, and unfortunately we do not need to look too hard to find it. But God is leading the way through it, pointing out when to be strong against the attacks of the devil. We just have to trust he is going to work out everything for our good. We have to stop looking for excuses to not trust. We have to follow even when we don’t know where he is leading, even when we don’t know what he is planning.

The beauty of this is we do not have to worry that he is going to turn on us and then laugh as we recoil in fear. We can have absolute faith and trust that he is on our side, and he will lead us out of the darkness and away from the clowns hiding in corners. All we have to do is follow.

After his family approached him at the end of Scaremare, and our pride took a slight blow with the realization that we were wrong the entire time, my friend and I laughed at our paranoia. We knew how ridiculous we must have sounded in the midst of all our accusations and distrust. If we had just believed him from the start, it would have saved us a lot of added extra fear. But then again, I guess we wouldn’t have burned as many calories.   

From atop the solo challenge

Approaching the high adventure solo challenge, I surveyed the situation at hand and knew at once that something was not quite right. The middle school kids who were supposed to be climbing into harnesses and strapping on helmets to take their turn climbing up the 20-foot pole were sitting off to the side. Glancing toward the top of the pole, I saw one of the middle school boys in a squat position, hands clutching his knees, face twisted in fear and concentration.  

I walked up to my coworker who was belaying for the poor kid whom I’ll call Jeff, and I asked him how long Jeff had been on top of the solo challenge. It is not uncommon for people to climb up the pole quickly, get on top and then freeze, too scared to jump off. At this point in time, I was told that Jeff had been atop the pole for about an hour.

This was already an impressive feat. Not only was it extremely hot, but Jeff was also squatting, too scared to stand up straight for fear of losing his balance. The kid had some legs of steel to endure that position for an hour. Despite the encouragement and cheers from his fellow campers and from the SpringHill staff present, Jeff was unwilling to make the leap.

 

The nerve-wracking thing about the solo challenge is that once someone reaches the top, the only way to get down is to jump. Each camper is harnessed in, of course, so after the jump, the camper hangs from the harness as the belayer slowly lets them down. So logically, there should be no fear of getting hurt or falling.

One thing I found interesting as I would belay campers is that many of them would ask the same exact question: “If I fall, will you catch me?” My answer was always the same as I replied with, “Yes, you can trust me. I am not letting go of this rope and, even if you fall, even when you jump, I will never let go.” At this point, some of them would close their eyes and jump. Others, however, would hear my words, but the shaky pole under their feet and the ground so far beneath them proved too much, and they gave into their fears and would not budge.

I never understood why they would rather stand atop that pole for long stretches of time, staring at the distance between them and solid ground, knowing that the only way was to trust me and jump. I never understood until I looked at it from another perspective.

I have been learning a lot about prayer recently. There are some major steps that I have to take soon, and I have been praying for God to give me wisdom and to reveal to me how he wants me to take these steps. These are some scary steps. Steps such as leaving the country for three weeks and figuring out what to do after graduation. Until now, the adrenaline has kept me moving. Just like my campers, I have raced to the top of the pole. But now that I am at the top, the only thing to do is take that leap and trust that God is going to catch me.

Staring into the future is like staring over the top of that pole. It is intimidating, and I know that on my own I would never make it. But God is right there, telling me, “Yes, you can trust me. I am not letting go of this rope and, even if you fall, even when you jump, I will never let go.” And so now the choice is mine. Do I trust him and jump, believing that he is holding onto me, or do I tremble at the top of the pole, letting the fear of failure and potential hurt hold me back?

Jeff squatted on top of that pole for two solid hours. By the time he was on the ground again, his face was red from tears, sweat and sunburn. My coworker had his own sunburn, as well as some impressive blisters from holding the rope steady for two hours. But he never let go.

I jumped off of my pole recently, and the relief was immediate. God has proven his faithfulness again and again, and I am overwhelmed by it all. I understand how easy it is to let fear take hold and paralyze any action or trust, but do not let that take over and consume, or you will never know what it feels like to have your feet on solid ground.   

Give me s'more SpringHill

I don’t think I will ever get used to the way God works. He uses the most random and unrelated situations to bring us right where he wants us. I experienced this last fall after walking into a job fair expecting to come away with contacts for future jobs or internships. I walked out with a pamphlet in my hand and a calling in my heart to do something I have never desired to do before: work at a summer camp.   

Through a series of events orchestrated only by God, a week after I left Liberty in the spring, I walked onto the campus of SpringHill in Indiana. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I knew that if God had gotten me this far, he had something in mind for me for the next 10 weeks.

 I was wrong. God did not have something in mind: He had multiple things in mind. I have never experienced such a time of trial, heartache, joy and beauty. God revealed to me things about myself that I did not want to face. He opened my eyes to some harsh realities of life as well as to his overwhelming compassion.

 I could fill pages and pages with different stories that reveal how God worked in my heart during my 10 weeks at SpringHill Camps. But for the sake of my time and yours, I will simply share this one story.

 One of the amazing opportunities I had over the course of the summer was talking with the middle school girls each Wednesday night after sharing my testimony. It was a time when I answered questions, provided a listening ear or was simply a shoulder to cry on as girls told me their own stories.

 During training, we talked about what would happen during these times and how best to respond. Going into the first week of campers, I was excited at the thought of telling my story and being there to respond to the needs of these girls. I was thrilled at the thought of praying with girls to accept Christ.

 Each week, I talked with different girls and heard everything from desires to learn the best ways of witnessing to fears of going back to a home filled with verbal and physical abuse. Each week, I was struck with the realization that, similar to Moses, I am not eloquent when it comes to speech. I was also struck with the realization that, similar to the disciples, I struggle with pride when it comes to my faith.

 As foolish as it may sound, I heard the stories of my counselors and coworkers praying with campers to accept Christ and, although I was filled with joy and excitement, there was a part of me that grew jealous. Praying with campers was not an uncommon occurrence for me, but I had yet had the opportunity to pray with a camper to surrender to Jesus. I wondered what I was doing wrong.

 Satan fed me lies such as not having a powerful enough testimony, and I irrationally believed him. He played off of my pride of wanting to be able to say I had led girls to Christ and used it to fill my mind with doubt and self-consciousness.

 It was extremely humbling when I realized how I was letting my pride and my insecurities keep me from truly letting the Holy Spirit speak through me. The last Wednesday night of sharing testimonies approached faster than I expected, and I was faced with the decision to spend another night allowing myself to succumb to the devil’s lies or give it all to Christ through prayer. Thankfully, I chose the latter and another name was written in the Book of Life that night, as I had the amazing experience of praying with one of my girls to accept Christ.

 At that moment, it was no longer about being able to brag on the fact that I was spiritual enough to lead someone to Christ. It was about being able to brag on the fact that Jesus can use any and every situation to bring someone to him, whether that someone is a middle school girl rising above the doubt and surrendering to him or a college senior laying down her pride and insecurities at the cross.

 My time at SpringHill grew me in my faith like nothing I have ever experienced. The realization that Christ used me, despite my failures and human pride, is extremely humbling. And the realization that God knew exactly what would result from my walking into that job fair gives me goose bumps.

 God is bigger than the individual boxes we all place him in when we try to figure out the future or when we doubt that he will actually work through us, mere stumbling humans. He burst the box I had put him in wide open, and I am not willing to fall into the trap of putting him in another one. My God is greater than that, and he has a plan and a purpose for every situation. We just have to be willing to let go of the pride, excuses and insecurities, and watch him work.