LEAP OF FAITH! LET GO. TRUST GOD.

I did it. I can’t believe I did it. I actually went skydiving. On July 5, 2008 I did jump out of a plane at 11,000 feet, and I’m very happy I did it. No, I’m not going to do it again. I only wanted to do it one time.

People have asked me is that something that was on your “Bucket List?” When I jumped on July 5th, I didn’t know what a bucket list was, but since everyone’s been asking, I did rent the movie and watch it. It’s a movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman about two men in the later years of their life who find out they have cancer, and they will be dying within a year. They decide to do go out and experience life to the fullest and scratch things off their bucket list; things that they always wanted to do but never did. So, yes, I guess you could say that was something on my bucket list.

But, for me, it was a little bit more than that. It was really about letting go and letting God. It was really about freeing up the control that I have in my life. I’m a very conservative person. I don’t take a lot of crazy risks. I do take risks, but usually they are smart, calculated risks. Normally, I’m fairly conservative and color within the lines for the most part. Of course, my husband thinks I never saw a line that I didn’t like to draw outside..but that’s another story.

One day, I was talking to someone about my faith, and we were kind of talking about what faith is, and what faith isn’t. I had explained to them that for me faith isn’t like temporary faith, temporal faith, like when 911 happened. It seemed like everybody had faith. Everybody went back to church. Everybody said: “Oh God, help me.” That’s a temporary type of faith.

Real faith for me is saving faith…where I totally trust Christ to save me and provide the gift of eternal life to me. That’s the type of faith that I want in my life and in my relationship with Jesus Christ. We were talking about how do you have that kind of faith? And, I pointed to a chair across the room, and I said: “You know, right now, I’m sitting in this chair, and I trust this chair to hold me up. If you asked me to trust that other chair in the room to hold me up, how would I show you that I completely trusted in that chair to do that? I could tell you “I believe that chair will hold me up”, but that would just be my words. In order to show that I completely 100% believed in that chair to support my weight, what would I have to do? And the answer was, I would have to get up out of my chair and leave my way of doing it and go sit in that other chair, and totally count on it to hold me up.

I’m really good about believing. I do believe, but sometimes, maybe most times, I’m the co-pilot in my life and glad God is along for MY ride. But like the old adage says, if that’s my attitude I need to switch seats.

There is a Christian song I love called I Surrender All, and it’s not I surrender 99 percent, you know, but I surrender all. And so, it started, coming in my mind, this idea about skydiving because let’s face it, when you leave a plane at 11,000 feet you pretty much are totally completely letting go of your own control and trusting in something and someone else…a parachute, the guy on your back, the guy who packed your chute, the 4 hooks that hold you to the guy on your back. In that scenario, I have no control. I don’t even have a chute on my back for goodness sakes. I am not at all in control. I am trusting in something bigger and stronger than me. Completely trusting. All. 100% trusting.

A few days later, after that conversation, I heard the song on the radio, Live Like You Were Dying, and I think it’s a Tim McGraw song. It’s a country song, and he is talking to his dad, and his dad tells him that he has cancer, and it’s not good, and he’s going to die, and he says to the dad: “So dad, what did you do?”

And then, comes the chorus of the song: “I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing. I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu, and I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying, someday I hope you get the chance to live like you are dying.” And I thought, actually I DECIDED I want to live like I’m dying. With no fears, no regrets, no “someday” I’ll do things when I have time, money or the kids grow up. Today is a gift from God and it’s all I got. I want to live in it!

Although I’m 51 years old, this is not a mid-life crisis. For some reason, I’ve always been acutely aware that this life is temporary and it’s not a dress rehearsal. So I think I’ve lived bolder than your average bear, but still not nearly bold enough. At Keller Williams, we believe in the motto: Think Big. Aim High. Act Bold. Live Large. So why not me, why not now?

I do dream big, but I don’t dream nearly as big as my God is. When you stare up at giant problems in your life they can seem so big, but that’s from my perspective on the ground. When God looks down from his perspective, those giants are pretty tiny.

So, part of this skydiving thing was not about having an adrenaline rush. Being a Real Estate Agent gives me all the adrenaline rush I need. It was more about letting go and trusting God 100%.

So, anyway, I decided to go skydiving. My friend at church had already done it. He is the one that pushed; I mean encouraged me to see this through. He is a young guy, fun guy; his name is Brian King. He kind of was my mentor and my cattle prod on to get me to do it because, of course, it’s a crazy thing.

I was very afraid, and my son said to me: “Mom, why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good plane to get right back to the ground where you already were?” And that’s very logical, and my husband who is also very logical thought it was just kind of plain stupid. And so, I guess it was, but again, this was my life, and my dream. They let me go, but of course they wouldn’t come watch me.

The first time I tried to go, the weather was rainy and cold and I was relieved. The second time it was too windy, and I was relieved. Maybe this was not supposed to be and I should just give up, quit, walk away, forget it. That sure would have been easy. Brian wanted to schedule another date out a couple of months in advance, and I said: “No, I don’t want to think about it that long. That would create too much angst in my life knowing it was coming up. I’m better when I’m spontaneous. If I’m going to do it, let’s just do it.”

So we scheduled the jump for that weekend. July 5th. Seemed kind of fitting over 4th of July..you know freedom and people of courage moving forward in faith.

Brian called me late on the night of July 4th and he said: “So, are you ready in the morning?” and I’m like: “Ready for what?” and then I remembered, and my stomach just fell. I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing my life, so I don’t get overwhelmed, one day at a time and living in the moment, but then I remembered and I wanted to do this. I’m supposed to be letting go. Well, are you going to chicken out? I sure wanted to.

So like the able comparmentalizer I am, I decided to not think too far ahead…one moment at a time. All I would commit to was to drive over there in the morning. I could handle that. And that night I slept ok…knowing I was just going for a drive in the morning.

So I learned another valuable lesson, when I’m afraid of something in life, break it up into smaller chunks, into compartments, and take just one tiny step at a time. All I would let my mind commit to was taking the drive over the Vandalia, and then I would go from there and take another step, you know, the journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step. So, we drove over there and had a great time driving over there. We talked a lot. We talked about skydiving. We talked about faith. We just had fun and laughed.

So, we got to Vandalia, and then I said to myself: “Step two; I’m just going to pay my money. That way if I don’t want to do it, I still don’t have to do it. I’m still in control”. So, you see, even skydiving, I’m still trying to be in control.

Then we had to go watch a video. If you ever go skydiving, I just want to warn you, the first thing they do is take you in a room where an attorney on a video is telling you how ridiculously dangerous it is and how you could die, you can’t sue them, no matter what, you can’t sue us. If you do this, it’s all your own. So that was kind of fun, but I just chose not to listen to that part. Again, you can focus on all the reasons not to do something, or you can stay true to your goal and focus on the goal and not all the extraneous negativity trying to distract you.

One of my goals was to skydive on a beautiful day because part of the joy of it, for me, would that feeling of flying. Okay, maybe some of you might say falling, but for me I pictured it was floating, flying. It was a perfect day. I mean it was blue skies, white puffy clouds. It couldn’t have been any more perfect. So I there I was at the skydiving place and I no longer had any remaining excuse for backing out. It’s was time to commit to that next step putting on my jumpsuit A jumpsuit implies a suit you jump in or out of in this case.

I’m a real estate agent, and my name of my group is The Anne Dunajcik Group, and part of my logo is the rainbow (did you know there is a rainbow around God in heaven according to Revelations), and when I was picking out my jumpsuit, there was a rainbow jumpsuit! Now come on, a rainbow jumpsuit, how cool is that! I just knew it was a good omen from God…maybe I’m not going to die today! Faith started building. It’s going to be okay. Take a leap of faith.

So then I committed myself to just going through the class, putting on the jumpsuit, and the next thing I knew, we were walking out to the plane.

The plane ride up was the most challenging time. You have 25 minutes while the plane is climbing to 11,000 feet. 25 minutes to look out that window and realize how high you are going. 25 minutes to say, what am I doing? But then I decided again, what are you thinking about? What are you focusing on? Fear or Courage? Either you trust and go or forget it. If I’m trusting, then stop with the negative thoughts and fears. Focus on the goal.

By the way, I was doing a tandem jump with an instructor strapped to my back. Symbolically I was trusting in him to get me to safety like the main pilot that I trust with my life, my eternity. As he goes, I go. We are linked together. I have no chute, so he is definitely the pilot. I am completely dependent on him to deliver me safely to the ground.

He was connected to me in 4 different places. So I didn’t just have to trust him, I had to trust those 4 hooks and the stitching that sewed the straps that hold the hooks. I have no chute; only the guy on my back who has the chute, so I’m trusting in those hooks to keep me connected to him. Then, I’m trusting in the guy that packed my parachute.

By the way, I met the guy that packed my chute. He was an 18 year old high school student. Oh boy, now I’m really out of control and trusting in him that he did it right. I got lots of experience trusting and being out of control.

Once the plane reaches 11,000 feet, then it’s time to jump …or float as I liked to think of it to make myself feel better. Up, up we go in the worst plane I’ve ever seen; the kind of plane my mother says everyone would probably die in. So the plane ride was kind of challenging because when I had seen a video of other jumps, other people were in a nice big plane with a bench, and they’re scooting along the bench, and it’s all orderly and logical.

Well, not ours; we were all sitting on the floor of this tiny plane. There were, I think, seven of us in there, and the pilot, and we were packed – I mean it was just 2 people wide, and we weren’t on a lovely bench, we packed like sardines in a tin can. And it felt like a tin can, there was duct tape on the doors, the doors look like they were from a 57 Chevy, the back part of the plane was missing parts of the walls and wires were hanging out of the side. I was highly motivated to get out of that death trap. See how God provides? Jumping now seemed like the safest and fastest way down!
Everyone asks me, how did you get yourself to jump out of that plane? That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s the moment, isn’t it? I mean everything hinges on that moment and taking that leap of faith…literally in this case.

And that was the thing that I was most afraid of. It was that letting go of the safety of the plane, because once you let go of that plane and exit that door, you’re either living, or you’re dying; the chute’s either opening or it’s not. You’re committed; 100% committed and acting in faith and I would be completely out of any control over my life.

My buddy, Brian King gave me the advice that saw me thru. It was so simple but so profound and it was a life lesson. By using his advice jumping, falling, floating out of that plane was easy. Truly.

The advice? Focus on the jobs I had to do when it was time. And so I did. One moment at a time, completely focused on each little step before and during the exit from the plane.

Of course, when that door opened at 11,000 feet, and I tell you, at that point, I wanted to get out of that plane more than I wanted to stay in because wind comes rushing in all over you and it’s sensory overload, and It’s absolutely chaos. It felt like the plane was going to explode and it was crazy, and, you know, that’s when your adrenaline starts pumping, and the pilot says to all of us go, go, go.

And my tandem instructor, says in my ear, go, go go. So I remember Brian’s advice. And I focus on the jobs I have to do. That is one of the really valuable life lessons I took away from this experience. What are you focusing on? Your fears or Your dreams? The problems or the goal?

The Bible says to focus our eyes on Jesus. If I am truly focused only on him, everything else kind of falls away; all the problems, all the issues, all the fears, because you’re focusing on Him. My brain can only hold one thought at a time. So what are you focusing on?

So, now it was time to take that leap of faith. My tandem friend, says “Scoot up, scoot up, scoot up, scoot up” so I thought to myself, scoot up, scoot up, scoot up, and I did. Then he said: “Okay, put your feet outside on the little step” which of course is outside the plane. So then again you’re committed. Your feet are out there, but I didn’t think on that. I’m repeated to myself, “Put your feet on the step.” He said: “All right, grab your shoulder straps” so I thought and grabbed my shoulder straps.

I wasn’t focusing on I’M JUMPING OUT OF A FAST MOVING PLANE AT 11,000 FEET AND MAYBE THE CHUTE WON’T OPEN AND MAYBE THE STRAPS WON’T HOLD AND MAYBE THESE COULD BE MY LAST MOMENTS ON EARTH AND IN SECONDS I COULD BE HURTLING TO MY DEATH..WHAT AM I DOING, AM I CRAZY?”

That never entered my mind, because I was focusing on my job to do next which was grabbing my shoulder straps. Then he is talking in my ear saying, “Ok I’ going to rock us back and forth and say ready set go and then we’ll go”..so I’m listening to him for my direction and for his words and the next thing I know I’m falling towards the earth.”

And it was easy. Because I focused on him and his words. I’m guessing there is a pretty big life lesson in that too…focusing on him and his words and life is then easy and it all makes sense.

It was so bizarre because I never had time to be afraid because I wasn’t focusing on my fears. I just focused on what I was supposed to be doing and it made the difficult easy, the frightening, perfectly peaceful.

I will tell you the most surprising thing of all; you have no sensation of falling whatsoever; none. I mean, you know you’re falling because you see the ground rushing up at you. But it feels like you’re laying on a pillow of air with like a fan blowing you up in the air.

But it does feel like you are flying around. We kind of flew over to the guy that was taking my video and we waved to him and we gave thumbs up to him and he took a video of what I had written on my hands before we left. I had written the words, Let Go to remind me always of my goal in this amazing journey.

I will tell you that from the time you exit the plane to the time your chute opens, is ridiculously fast. The plan was to open the chute at 5,000 feet. I went from 11,000 feet to 5,000 feet in like 50 seconds, so clearly I was falling and falling fast, but you don’t experience that at all.

In the pre-jump training, my instructor told me he was going to pat my hip, which is where the rip cord was, and then when he patted my hip I was supposed to put my hand over his on the rip cord and we would pull the rip cord together. Well, my brain must have just been exploding with sensory overload, because I never felt the man patting on my hip. So, I also learned if you really don’t know what you are doing, it’s good not to be the one in control or I would have died because I completely forgot about opening the life-saving chute if you can believe that! So I’m glad I trusted in someone bigger, wiser and more in touch with the big picture than myself.

The chute burst opens and you get that yahoo feeling of being rocketed up higher in the sky and that’s when my brain came back and said, oh yeah, the chute opened!

Then we were floating. And it was so beautiful and so peaceful and so quiet. It was amazing. I was floating above the earth and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do and all was right with the world and the world looked beautiful.

The parachute is was more like a hang glider, so he was showing me how I could pull it left and make it go left and pull it right and make it go right. You could pull on both straps and slow it down and I was back in some control again. We were floating over Vandalia Lake looking down at green farms and floating through a cloud. It was all other-worldly. But it wasn’t quite the sensation of flying, so I guess that is still going to have to be a dream of mine. When are they going to invent those personal jet packs?

It takes about four minutes to float down to the ground. Landing was the next and last thing to overcome. My only job was to keep my feet up so that I don’t break my ankles which evidently really happens! Yuck! So believe me my feet were held high!

The 3 landing choices are: standing, running or sliding. I was told based on the wind that day, we were going to slide. Landing was surprisingly easy and slow. With the straps, he was able to slow us down so much that we just can’t landed in a real gentle little boop (is that a word? Well, it was a boop to me!)

Back to earth. Safely on the ground. Yeah!

I’ve got pictures of me after we landed. I just fell back and burst out laughing and I love the look on my face, it’s just pure, ecstatic, fabulous, outright joy!

I didn’t do it for the adrenaline rush, but I know now that there must have been tons of adrenaline flowing through me because once it was over Brian King and I ran to each other and hugged and then I just started crying, so I guess that was the adrenaline and all the focus, hopes and dreams now uncontained and radiating outward.

So I guess you can tell, I thought it was awesome. Would I do it again? No, but actually I never wanted to do it more than once. That wasn’t my goal. I achieved my goal.

It was funny. We took a picture at the end of my hands that said “let go.” The let go was pretty smeared from some sweaty palms. It wasn’t easy as my sweaty palms revealed, but I did it!

I wanted to completely 100% and let go and trust in somebody else besides myself.

There is another big thing I got out of it. I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing you are pretty much like me, you have a fear of death and what’s really on the other side, what’s really going to happen once you exit this door on our earthly life. What’s on the other side?

As a Christian, I believe that I am a sinner and that Jesus Christ is God’s son and he came to earth to die for me and all sinners. I believe that thru his life, death and resurrection he purchased eternal life for me and for all who believe on his name. He’s the guy I’ve strapped my life to. He’s got the chute and I want to stay firmly hooked to him! I believe he is my savior and I believe in the hope of eternal life that he promised me. I am putting all my trust in him, but I still have to let go and go thru that door of death someday and it’s still scary. But now I’ve been out a scary door. I let go. I came out on the other side and it was magical and beyond description. I think traveling from death to eternity is going to be like this experience and now it doesn’t seem so scary to me.

If a little airplane jump can be so amazing, what must heaven be like? Far beyond anything I can ask or imagine. So I hope you live today like the gift from God that it is. And I hope you focus on your goals and dreams and let your fears fall away from you. I hope you put your trust into someone bigger and stronger and wiser than you and that you Let Go and Take a Leap of Faith. I’m glad I did.