Feel Strong

One of my favorite movies is Into The Wild. A story about a kid that graduates from university and runs away from life, leaving everything and everyone behind. He journeys for two years around the lower 48 and eventually ends up in Alaska, alone and in the wild. This movie inspired me to
live life abundantly, to focus on the journey rather than the destination. In the movie Chris McCandless is quoted as saying,
"I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head."
Life has given me the chance to face these types of situations. I've been on a number of backpacking adventures where I pushed myself to the limit of existence (at least that's how I felt). I feel like I have faced the blind death stone but I wasn't alone. While I had my hands and my head to help me out of those situations, I also had something else. Faith.
Some people scoff at the idea of being in these situations. They tell me I'm crazy for doing what I do. I disagree. These situations bring me closer to God than any Sunday service. They let me know that He IS there.
It's so important in life to have the chance to feel alive. To be reminded how fragile life is. We often live our lives so mundanely that we forget what it means to BE ALIVE. I feel that these "crazy" situations I've been in have given me the chance to feel alive and I'm constantly looking for new chances to be given the reminder that life is fragile. If it means cliff jumping into a water hole in the middle of the wilderness in March, I do it. Because moments like these, moments where I'm trying to decide whether or not to take a chance, to risk feeling uncomfortable, cold, wet, remind me what it's like to face life. And the moment when my whole body plunges through the surface of the frigid water and I come up gasping for air, unable to speak, barely able to swim to shore, at this moment I face the most ancient human condition, the condition of survival. And when I emerge from the water and bask in the warmth of the sun and know that I did it, that I LIVED, well, that's when
I feel strong.