Receiving hope and bring hope to others

By Jeff Becraft

 

To say that I am scared of heights would be an understatement.  But I have grown a lot.

The first time I did a high ropes course was out in Arkansas. I was with a boys ranch and a children’s home out in boogah cheetah. The course was in the middle of the woods and the cables that went between the trees and poles were 30′ up in the air.

(To show how much I don’t like heights, I was once sitting talking with a friend and he told me about an obstacle he had done involving climbing up a telephone pole and having to stand on top of it. We were sitting in a McDonald’s… in air conditioning… and I broke out in a sweat right there. I emphatically said to him, “I will never do something like that.”)

I sat there with the group in Arkansas as I watched person after person go through the obstacles… 30 feet up in the air. I was the oldest person in the group, even among the adults. Contemplating the situation in my mind, I thought, “I don’t have to do this. I could easily bow out and no one would say anything. They would just assume that I am too old and grumpy for such shenanigans.”

But… still anxious, I strapped on the harness and helmet and waited my turn. I started up the first telephone pole and got to the first crossover junction… a mere 10′ up in the air.

I stood there frozen.

I still had 20′ to go to even get to the first obstacle. I was sweating like crazy and my heart was racing. I held on to the telephone pole and stared blankly with my helmet pressed up against it. My mind was also racing — “What are you doing? You can just stop now. This is crazy. You should have just stayed on the ground. Just go back down and say you tried.” But I took the next step up on the diagonal telephone pole to get up the next 20′.

I wound up making it through all five obstacles — all of them 30′ up in the air. I made it through by the cheering on of our daughter, Corrie (who was following me each step of the way on the ground and cheering me on: “You can do it, Dad!”… and we wonder where some of the principles of Youth Corps come from…), looking straight ahead, talking to God, and taking one step at a time.

When we hit a point where we are frozen… stuck… or we feel like nothing is going to change, it is easy to lose hope. We can start to talk to ourselves and even talk ourselves into that all is hopeless.

But that next step… we don’t know what that next step holds. And with looking upward and the encouragement of others, there is no telling what will happen.

With Youth Corps, I have now been up a telephone pole numerous times and have stood on top of it and have jumped off to a trapeze.  I can now sit with my friend in the air conditioning at a McDonald’s and tell him I have done it also (even though you will probably still see sweat on my brow when I talk about it).

And when we have received hope while taking that next step, we can then in turn bring hope to others around us when in various situations they may say, “I could never do that.”

 

Jeff Becraft is the Executive Director for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives.  Youth Corps is a life-changing leadership development experience that inspires high school students to be leaders in the Midlands and beyond. You can connect with Jeff at [email protected].