Heights

I remember the first time I encountered my fear of heights. It was a youth trip to Taman Negara where we had to go on this canopy walk. Crazily high. I hated every step of it. Ever since then, I have had this loathe for heights. 

But as always, life just loves taking a hairpin turn on you. In the past couple of months, I've been actively venturing into climbing (wall climbing and bouldering). Boy, do I still hate the whole idea of heights. Haha. From ministry perspective, GSN is at it's infant stage of exploring climbing as a sport and ministry platform. I thank God for such opportunity to venture into. All glory to Him. 

This is the blue wall located at Kompleks Belia, Penang,
which is relatively easier to climb. 

Doesn't look that high, right?

Well, now it looks high! Haha.

It's possibly about 10 metres high. 

By my standard, it's high. Haha.

On a personal note, however, it has been a real battle for me to slowly conquer my fear of heights. Often, people like to make fun of my fear when they know about it. People often forget the crippling force of fear, whatever fear that may be, on a person. Make no mistake people. Fear does cripple one's faith. Let's learn not to don't discourage or fuel a person's fear, but let's learn to encourage and help them overcome such fear. After all, who wants to live in fear?

 I started off by learning to belay a climber. 

I didn't particularly enjoyed climbing at first but now,

I'm slowly getting the "hang" of it. Pun intended :P

Over time, I'm beginning to enjoy climbing. It's really quite cool! By the end of the climb, your heart is pumping real hard due to the sheer awareness of how high you are and your body is drenched with sweat as you're working every single body muscle. What a sport. To me, I like the idea of climbing simply because every time I climb, it reminds me how human I am. How I have my imperfections and fears and it's through each climb that I learn to overcome those imperfections and fears, bit by bit. Truth be told, I didn't manage to climb the entire length of the wall on my first attempt. I was crippled by fear the first time. But I kept at it. And yes, I manage to climb the entire length on my second attempt :)

Hard pumping, body sweating, mind boggling!

 It's the reminder of how human I am. Each climb

reminded me that I needed to have faith!

We even took some time out to climb at Camp5, 1 Utama! :)

Trying my hands on an artificial wall!

And got myself a new pair of climbing shoes! :)

The great Edmund Hillary once said, "It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves". So true. We don't overcome fear over night. For me, I didn't completely overcome fear just by climbing the entire length of the wall. It's a constant "battle". It's a progressive climb of self-improvement. At the end of the day, it's not the wall that I conquer, but the joy of knowing that when faith resides in my heart, fear gradually fades away.

Next target: To conquer the 16m wall at Camp5! So higggghhhh!