Just Hang On
Posted on Aug 13, 2025 by Pastor Jealaine Marple
My family and I spent a short few days on vacation in late July in Minnesota. We chose to make the Mall of America our main destination. When you have a 12-year-old, that seems like a logical decision. The mall has an amusement park at its center. We promised EJ that we would spend some time there. She decided she wanted mom and dad to accompany her on one ride apiece. Chris lucked out and got to ride the “easy” roller coaster. No loops. No upside downs. No frills. Safe for even a 5-year-old. Then, EJ pointed to another ride and said, “Momma, I want you to go on that one with me!”
The ride was called Avatar Airbender. Now, have I seen Avatar? No. Did this ride make me want to do that? Also no. If one were to look at the ride from above, it looked like a large surfboard with two “wheels” on each end. Each wheel was comprised of about eight seats. These were the kind of seats that had an over-the-head harness AND seatbelts. I’m not opposed to thrill rides — but they just hit the body differently than they did when I was 12. I watched how the ride operated: as the “surfboard” went up and down in a very large “U” shape, the wheels spun 360 degrees. I counted — 10 times that the “surfboard” went up and back. I thought, “I can survive 10 rounds of that.”
I got strapped in, held on to the harness, and prepared myself. I closed my eyes and prepared to count slowly to 10. The breeze generated by the ride was a lot. I could feel my hair blowing in the wind. I was almost glad I closed my eyes because I had this unfounded fear my contacts might actually blow right off my eyeballs. There were brief moments of zero gravity. According to EJ the view from the very top was “amazing.” I will trust her on that. But when all was said and done, I had survived the 10 up and backs and didn’t get too woozy doing it.
Sometimes faith feels like that ride. We may not know how we are going to react, so it’s just best to hang on and trust that we are going to be okay in the end. We don’t always need to enjoy the ride (and maybe some of us do). There may be times when the ride makes us question our sanity. Maybe the ride makes us a little queasy. But in the end, hopefully we think “that wasn’t too bad!” Sometimes trusting God feels like a wild ride we never imagined. So why do I share all of this with you? Because I feel like the Holy Spirit is up to something at Salem. I don’t know quite what yet. I am excited to see. In the meantime, I am just going to hang on and let God be God. Wheeeee!
In Christ,
Pastor J