Was sitting in my garden one morning and heard the sound of crows cawing out loud. I decided to go up to check and found a pa and ma crow trying to encourage their little fellow to fly out of his nest. “Come on jump!” cawed the father. “You’ve got to move on!” whispered his mother. “I don’t want to,” shivered the little fellow as he held tightly onto his home.
He didn’t know that if he jumped a fantastically new, wonderful world was out there, waiting to be enjoyed and conquered. As I watched the little chap hesitating, my thoughts moved to a trapeze artist in a circus, swinging back and forth. And then she encounters another trapeze bar.
It is swinging toward her and it is empty. Now she has a decision to make. She may continue to hang onto her present bar, or let go and grasp the new one. But she can’t do both! She can’t hang onto the old and grasp the new with her other hand.
She has to decide which she wants. If she chooses to let go of the past and grasp the future, she finds herself suspended for a moment in mid-air. Scary! It’s too late to go back and she has not yet latched onto the other bar. She is vulnerable and at risk.
But she has decided to take that risk in order to move forward. Life is like that, isn’t it? Sometimes you’ve to let go of something if you want to latch onto something else. Maybe you need to let go of an old job in order to take a new one or an old relationship, before fitting a new one into your life.
You have to let go of other priorities on your time or money before grasping that new opportunity. And for a while you may feel suspended in mid-air. You’ve committed to something new, let go of the past, but you have not yet grasped what is ahead.
You feel vulnerable, maybe frightened. But you know that the only way you can reach the new bar is to let go of the old one.But like Pumba (from ‘The Lion King’) says, ‘Ya gotta put your behind in your past.’ Then you’re ready for whatever comes next. I watched the crows, the father and mother, cajoling, coaxing and convincing the little fellow to jump.
And finally, he did; for a moment my heart stopped as I felt him plummet downwards, then suddenly his wings opened, the wind took him up, and he soared to enter a brand new world! As I walked back to my garden that morning I smiled then laughed with joy, startling the pa and ma crows nearby; that unlike their baby crow, unlike many people we know, we can let go and jump with the confidence and knowledge a God above is just waiting to catch us, hold us and carry us on to next trapeze bar and the next and the next. Let go, jump..!
