Mind the Other Gap

I don’t know how we got to the top, but we were inside a very small building atop a tower, like a firetower in a forest. My memory of many of the details of that day are lost in the cobwebs of childhood. I do remember a row of windows around the entire building, and a telescope of sorts.

I know it was a tourist attraction because there were other people up inside this building with us. In fact, it was somewhat crowded. Amazing what we do and don’t remember. I remember the floor was unvarnished hardwood and dirty, and my dress was red.

And I was wearing patent leather shoes with slick soles.

The attraction in this room on stilts, besides the magnificent view, was the ride back down to earth in a sort of passenger car on a cable. Great fun, like a zipline for civilized folks with small children. People ascended and descended regularly, and we viewed the view while awaiting our turn.

I was so little. Yet I remember a sense of needing to hurry. I suppose the quicker people loaded and unloaded the cars, the more money the owners earned. Finally we approached the doorway where the car was dangling, waiting for us to board. I watched this car swaying and heard it creaking while the owner reminded my parents of the huge space between the building and the car, with about a hundred feet of space below it. My parents cautioned me and explained the extreme danger in stepping wrong.

I froze. Anyone could see the gap was far larger than my tiny feet, and, in fact, my whole self could fit easily right through that gap. Of course, it was too huge a leap for a terrified little one.

I dug in. I was scared and wanted down. I cried.

That’s when my parents lifted me. I still was terrified, but they overcame my will with their own strength and jointly lifted me over that yawning hole, down into that cable car. I still was terrified. They had seen it was too hard for me and, after warning me not to struggle against them in my fear, had mercifully done it for me.

I am sure the view was spectacular on the ride down, but I don’t remember that part.

I do remember my parents’ loving mercy and surpassing knowledge and strength.

And I think of the gap between this world, that we think is so real, and the other world that exists all around us, that is really real — the Heavenly Kingdom.

The step we must take to leap from this world into the other is terrifying and too far, in our eyes.

But the loving mercy of our Heavenly Father and the Jerusalem Above, which is our mother, stand ready to bridge that gap for us, if we only will not fight it.

Love lifted me.
Love lifted me.
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.

________________

photo credit: Wikipedia