The large rock stands ominously in front of me. I put my helmet on, and tie myself into the belay rope.
“Are you ready?” My belayer, Johanna, asks.
“Yes,” I respond in a strained voice. I'm really nervous about this climb.
“Climb on.” She states.
Each year I attend a summer camp. This summer, the summer of 2013, I am at a local camp's Rock Climbing week. Right now my group is at a rock called Poles Steeple, and it is the highest climb we have done so far.
I walk up to the rock wall and inspected it for hand holds and foot holds. I tried climbing this part earlier when no one was watching, and I was not even able to get onto the wall. Now that everyone is watching, the pressure is even heavier.
I take a deep breath, and shake my hands out. I carefully place them on the rock wall and get ready to climb.
About three feet off the ground there is a substantial foothold, but I cannot stretch far enough to step on it. I try to position my arms and legs to allow my right foot to reach it. I can almost get my foot on it. I try a little a hop, but fall away from the wall.
My face flushes. I was afraid this was going to happen. Everyone else has been able to climb this rock easily, and now I cannot even get off the ground.
Focus, Anna, focus I tell myself.
I refocus, and try the same move again. Silly me; if it did not work the first time, why would it work the second time? Needless to say, It did not work, and I fell away from the wall again.
“Ugh,” I whisper in frustration. “What is this?”
“Why don’t you try leaning off to the side instead of going straight up?” Zach suggests. I try but leaning off to the side does not help at all. My frustration is mounting.
Okay, I thought, I can’t climb here, so I’ll try another spot.
“I’m going to try over here,” I say. I walk over to a spot that I know is harder than the first. I hope I will be able to climb at this spot because it would be confounding to be the only person to not climb this rock.
I look at the wall in despair. There are no good footholds or handholds. I place my hands on the little ledges of rock, and try to put my feet on non-existent footholds. Once again I slip off. I back away from the wall, and glare at it.
Way off the the right of the wall is a section that appears easy to climb. I turn to Zach and say,
“I’m going to climb there.”
“...Okay,” He says hesitantly.
I walk over the the spot, and then, without pausing to think, start to climb. My mind is so flustered with my previous failure that I climb recklessly. I know I’m safe. If I fall, the rope will catch me. Because of this, I do not even worry about falling.
What I do not realize until later is that I am far to the right of the carabiner at the top of the rock face. So if I slip - A very likely possibility - I will swing across the face of the rock like a pendulum, possibly scraping my whole body against the rock.
Thankfully, Zach saw it coming. While I was climbing, he positioned himself at the foot of the rock so that he could stop me if I fell.
In my mindless hurry, I do slip.
As I fall, I somehow turn so that my back is facing him. He puts his hands on my back to slow me down, and my momentum drives us back ten feet. We end up sitting on the ground, me in front of him.
“Oh my word, I’m so sorry.” I mumble as I stand up. Now not only am I frustrated, I am mortified. I just swung like a pendulum into my leader.
“It’s okay,” He assured me. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I mumble as I struggle to detach myself from the rope.
“Maybe you should take a break,” he said. I just nod my head and continue to try to get the rope untied. I can feel tears stinging around the rims of my eyes. The knot has gotten very tight. Finally, I get it untied. I quickly walk away and take a seat.
I am upset. Not only am I upset, I am upset because I am upset. It bothers me that I got so stressed out about a simple climb. I should not be fighting away tears simply because I could not climb a rock.
All of that happened a year ago. It was hard and stressful, but in retrospect, I learned an important lesson. I’m not going to be able to do everything. For the longest time, I thought I was, “The Best”, but I was not.
Without even knowing it, I was pressuring myself to be better than others, and in my struggle to be better, I started to be prideful. That pride caused me to look down on others, and to consider myself smarter, stronger, and wiser than I actually was. That pride did not allow me to learn from my mistakes. Instead it caused me to look at mistakes as failure.
After God showed me that pride was getting in the way of greater things, I have been able to work at removing pride from my life. Do not misunderstand me. I’m far from being completely humble, but I am now on my way. God has taken an awful experience, and used it to teach me an important lesson.
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