Picture a 3 story apartment complex, an old rusty fire escape ladder, and a guy. Now picture a guy hanging from an old rusty fire escape ladder at the top of a 3 story building at 4am. I bet you’re thinking that this person is either a thief or someone trying to escape to save their life. We’ll you’re wrong. I was neither of those. Yes, I said “I.”
Its July, 2010. My friend and I had a night of video games and movies at my house. After our fun, I drove her back to her home at 3am. She lived in an apartment complex, if you haven’t figured by now. The front entrance was locked and she forgot her key. We spent an hour calling her roommates that she knew were probably in the building at that time. Nobody answered. She had a fallout with her neighbors after several noise complaints over her 2 months of living in the building. With none of her roommates answering and being on the bad side with her neighbors, calling the complex owners was a last resort. It was a last resort because it would cost her $50 to get a replacement key for the night and she was already behind on bills due to lack of funds and not having a job. She claimed that this scenario happened before and she once resorted to climbing up the fire escape ladder to get into her apartment through her window. To this day, I don’t know if she was serious when she told me that story.
Well here I am, thinking I’m a superhero or something, offering my services to climb up the ladder to get into her room and walk downstairs to unlock the front entrance for her. Oh yea, keep in mind I said “walk downstairs.” This girl stayed at the very top of the building. Now, for those who are close to me, they know that I have a fear of heights. She didn’t know. She wasn’t close to me. I just met her a week ago.
Pause. Stop! Rewind! Eject!!
What in the very southernmost, hottest, darkest, corner of Hades would possess me to jump to great heights (in my case, climb) to do something like this for someone I just met?
I hadn’t even memorized her last name yet. I can tell you exactly what possessed me to do something like this.
Throughout years of loneliness and self-hate, I created a void in my life. Many times I thought that void could be filled by the companionship of others., especially since I was an only child. To keep a friend or after the thought of me losing a friend, I would go to great lengths to maintain the relationship. I would do things like put myself to the side (physically and unknowingly spiritually) just to keep them happy. And I was always giving, giving, and giving. I didn’t want to see them go away because I only had a couple people that I would call friends come into my life. But they would always depart eventually. We’d either grow apart from each other or move elsewhere. I first had this problem of loneliness during my late preteen and early teenage years. It remained dormant mostly through my late high school and early college years, but it came back with a vengeance by the time I hit 21. When I say “with a vengeance,” I mean panic attacks, depression, and hospital visits. I would cry and shake uncontrollably. But that’s another, more in-depth blog post. Now back to this ladder.
I walk up to the ladder. Its about 10 feet off the ground. I had to jump into the wall beside it and propel myself upward in order to grab it. My legs are dangling, spider webs all in my face, my hands are hurting from the impact of grabbing unto the rusted iron surface of the ladder, and my friend is watching safely in the distance. I pulled myself up 4 steps before I could even get my feet on the ladder. I now start climbing with a little more ease but my fear of heights is starting to kick in. Talk about the amount of sweat that was streaming down my face, whew! I climb some more and I get to a point where that ladder ends. Now what I have to do is shimmy across a balcony to get to the other side where another ladder allows me to go higher. Now at this point, my fear of heights was starting to fade because the fear of losing my life was much greater. Who knows how unstable that rusty ladder could have been! And let me tell ya, all that James Bond type stuff you see in the movies is not that easy in real life. I was pulling myself up with all my might and I’m definitely glad that wind wasn’t a big factor.
So I make it to the top just to find out that the window is locked. All that for nothing? Heck no, I ripped the screen open. Yep, yep. I climbed in through the screen, walked down the few flights of stairs, and unlocked the front door entrance for my friend.
Have you obtained something and went to great lengths just to keep it? Then, you find out in the long run that the thing you obtained was not worth going great lengths for? This could be a job, an object of desire, an achievement, or anything. I bet you probably have but you didn’t go as far extreme as I did to keep it. I was doing all of this to fill a void. A void that should’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit and not my own pleasure. I felt that I was going through a never-ending cycle of losing people. I didn’t put my faith in God that He would bring me through a storm that plagued me throughout the majority of my life so far. I brought this despair upon myself for not trusting in Him. Have you ever thought of your own resolutions to problems instead of seeking the Word of God? I thought that this night would be the pivotal moment in my life that I could redeem myself from what I called a failed childhood. I took a greater leap up this ladder than any leap I’ve ever taken toward God. SMH.
I felt low and ashamed the more I thought of that night. I knew it was time to start turning my life around. And you know what the funny thing is? You’re gonna love this, watch. She got pregnant within a week later by some guy.
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