"Always Stay Attached"

This week I went to "Go Ape" high in the trees of a forest. The instructor told us what to do so fast and with such a pronounced accent we had very little idea what the instructions were. We asked him to repeat the instructions but he just repeated them even faster, so we were still none the wiser. There were little pictures of the red and blue ropes, the red and blue clips and the green clips, and if you took it slowly and looked carefully you could probably figure out what you should be doing, Having left my reading glasses in a safe place, not realising I would need them to swing safely through the trees, I was at a disadvantage. Fortunately the one sign which was large enough to see and was liberally scattered round the trees, read. "Always stay attached" This being they key safety instruction, I took note.  As long as you forget that you are a very long way up and that the man who explained the safety procedures told you "You just dropped thirty feet to your death" when you made a mistake at the first training section, you can try and enjoy some of the exhilaration of hanging off a thin wire in mid air, very far from the ground. I am prone to getting lost which I managed to do whilst up in the tree tops. This resulted in me engaging in several maneuvers which were not strictly necessary. It was only when I discovered I had nowhere to 'stay attached' to if I tried to descend a commando net suspended twenty feet above the ground, that I realised I had inadvertently joined another course and was proceeding round it backwards. I retraced my steps and eventually swung off a precarious platform and down a long zip wire ready for the next zone. I learned a few things on my trip. 1. Try your old waterproof coat on before you arrive at the venue in the pouring rain and break the zip because it no longer fits you.         2. Wear reading glasses to swing through trees. 3. Stay with your group. 4 Study accents.5. Stay attached. 6. Lose weight.
In life there are some scary moments, some precarious situations, some sudden drops, some unreadable situations. The instruction to 'stay attached' is a great help if you have something secure to stay attached to. I have found God to be much more reliable than any carabiner, cable or tree. Staying attached to him has kept me safe when I felt I could have a painful fall. The Bible puts it like this "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."