Step Up!!!

Two of the features in my home that added to its aesthetic appeal are found in the master bedroom. They are the lofty cathedral ceilings and its sunken floor. These features make the room’s experience stand out as your eyes are drawn up. Conversely the sunken floor gives the room a sense of warmth and depth.

While these are exquisite features, about a month after we moved in, we were faced with a “challenge”. We wanted to add a ceiling fan to the bedroom, but because the ceiling was so high, the ladder that we possessed would not allow me to elevate high enough to install the fan (but believe me, I tried and I tried to use the ladder that I already had as most men would have done, before finally admitting that I needed to buy another ladder or borrow one from someone who had one that was tall enough). Fortunately a friend of mine, who lived right around the corner (Terrance who worked for Tyco as an installer/repair technician), had a ladder that I could use. This allowed me to “dodge the bullet” of having to buy a ladder. Thank God for Terrance!!!

Fast forward, about 5 ½ years later, to last week…I arrived home to here a loud high pitched beeping sound. It was the sound of the low battery warning coming from one of our smoke detectors. I dashed up the stairs to track down the sound. Low and behold, it was coming from the smoke detector that was located just shy of the apex of the cathedral ceiling in my master bedroom. “Oh Boy!!!” I thought to myself. How am I going to take care of this one? (Terrance now lives about 45mins to an hour away and I don’t think that even his ladder was tall enough to allow me to reach the smoke detector).

As I discussed the matter with my wife she said, “Baby are you sure that you can’t reach that smoke detector using our ladder?” I emphatically said, “NO!” I quickly reminded her of my failed attempt to install the ceiling fan using my ladder, but she was not convinced. She said, “Are you sure you can’t reach it?” I’ve heard that tone before…it was that “I need to see it to believe it tone.” I said, “Evidently you are acting as if you are from Missouri (the “show me state”), so let me get the ladder and just show you.”

I retrieved the ladder from the garage and set it up under the smoke detector and began to climb it. Chanda assisted by securing the ladder as I climbed to the second to last step from the top of the ladder. This is where I usually stopped climbing that particular ladder. To my surprise, I could almost reach the smoke detector. I looked down at the ladder and warning label said that I could safely climb to the next step, which allowed me to reach and to change the battery with ease.

Chanda gave me that “I told you so look”, which I deserved, but what she said to me was so profound. In summary, she told me that I was probably afraid to take that next step when I was by myself and chalked it up as being out of reach and impossible, but since she was there with me helping me, I had the support and encouragement that I needed to take the next step and to do what I didn’t think I could do while I was alone. The concept was so simple yet so true. Alone, I had accepted a limitation that really didn’t exist. I had all I needed to solve the problem. All I needed was the encouragement of someone else and for someone else to see me “operate under” and “demonstrate” this limitation that I had formulated in my mind. My “limitation” in her eyes didn’t exist. I was fully capable.

This experience led me to think about how I have placed “limitations” on myself in other areas of my life. I have at times been my worst critic, heaviest anchor, largest stumbling block and “loudest” heckler. I have been the victim of “self sabotage”. I am however so thankful for my wife and for other people that God has placed in my life that serve as an encouragement to me. They push me and they see my potential and have the ability to “disqualify” the limits that I have conjured up. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (Amplified Bible ) says: “Two are better than one, because they have a good [more satisfying] reward for their labor; For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”

Do you have spiritual “partners” that encourage you to go beyond your limits and your comfort level in your walk with the Lord? Who do you need to reach out to and encourage today? What limits have you placed on yourself and on God’s ability to work through you?

It’s time to take that “next step up” on the ladder of your life. God and your true friends will be there to support you and they will not let you fall and if you do, they will surely be there to break the fall and to help you get back on your feet.

Just take the step!!!

Be Blessed,

B