By Jaymi Firestone

I am not a skier. I’m going to just throw that out there. I found that out when I went skiing every year with my youth group when I was younger. Needless to say, I realized just how uncoordinated I actually was when I’d attach those long, skinny death traps to my feet. I’m pretty sure I spent more time sitting or getting up off of the snow than skiing over it.

Regardless, I continued to stick it out every year in hopes of improving, and to enjoy the trip with my youth friends.

The last time I skied was my junior year in high school. Why? Well…you see…I took a big fall…and it was entirely self-induced… You better believe I wasn’t setting foot on a pair of skis again after that!

Here’s what happened…

Problem #1… We had to schedule the trip a little later than usual that year, because of scheduling conflicts.

So, it was mid-March when we went to Angel Fire, NM for our annual ski trip. That meant it was mainly man-made snow and not fresh powder. If you’ve ever gone skiing, you know where this is going…

I had done fine skiing most of the morning. Minimal falling, and I felt good about how quickly I was picking it up again after a year away from the slopes.

Halfway through the afternoon, after I’d tackled all of the green beginner slopes, I decided to brave a Blue Slope, which is an intermediate slope. It should have been easy enough, or so I thought… Problem #2

My friends and I hopped on a larger ski lift and headed up the mountain. The excitement was building, and I felt confident I could take on this slope!

When we got to the top, I stood looking down the hill before using my poles to begin my descent. The view was breathtaking. I’ve got to admit, there’s nothing more beautiful than looking at a snow covered mountain below you.

What was coming shortly after wasn’t so beautiful though!

I started skiing down the slope and gained speed quickly. I decided to take a turn to a less steep section of the run, thinking it would be wiser than plowing down the hill and attempting to stop at the bottom. As I took the curve on the “easier” section of the run, my speed drastically increased as I hit an icy patch of snow. I had gained much speed that I wasn’t sure I could stop….

So, spur of the moment, I had the bright idea to just slide down onto the snow in a “graceful” fall.

Seriously, that was my bright idea. Just take a little slide and you’ll be fine.

As I’m sure you can imagine or have already figured out, that’s not quite how things happened…

BOOM!!

I hit the snow like I had just fallen 2 stories onto concrete and rolled…over and over again…until finally my face scraping the snow stopped the momentum.

I fell so hard that I broke my right ring finger and sprained the two on either side of it. My face slid against the hard, icy hill, and the impact of my face hitting the ground forced my chin up and I bit my tongue hard enough that it bruised half of it immediately. I can’t even imagine what it must have looked like to see my body flailing across the snow-packed hill.

Eventually I came to a rolling hault in the middle of the run, and was quickly greeted by one of my closest friends.

She dusted the snow off of my face and said, “aww honey, are you ok?!” I’m sure the image below is similar to what she saw, but with a bigger puff of snow!

The first words out of my mouth were, “Is my tongue still there?” because I was certain I had bit it off!

Luckily, that was a figment of my imagination. But I was in some serious pain.

I couldn’t manage to ski down the rest of the run, so I had to sit on the edge of the side, in the shaded, tree covered area, and wait for someone to come get me. Then we walked down together with me limping the whole way. The next morning, I woke up with whiplash from hitting the ground with such force.

There were quite a few lessons I learned from the experience, but the one that has stuck with me the most is that sometimes, what I think is the best option, isn’t always the best for me.

I had no way of knowing that my fall would result in broken and sprained fingers, a bruised tongue, scraped face, and whiplash, but that’s what I ended up with. I made a decision, without considering any other option, and the result was far more suffering than good.

Isn’t that how our faith is sometimes?

I know it is for me. I make decisions about what is best for me, rather than trusting that God sees the big picture. And usually, I end up hurting more in the long run.

Trusting in my own understanding is exactly opposite of what Proverbs 3:5-6 says.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

So here are some things to realize as you try to decide if you’re like me, trusting in yourself, or if you’re trusting God.

When trusting in yourself, you are:

– Doubtful (James 1:6)

– Unwise (James 1:7)

– Unstable (James 1:8)

When trusting in God, you are:

– Full of faith (James 1:2-3)

– Mature (James 1:4)

– Wise (James 1:5)

So, who are you trusting?

Yourself or God?

Just food for thought.