Climbing a wall

Yesterday my last class of the day finished early and since I didn’t want to wait an hour and a half for Burton, I decided to run home. I left my things in the car and put on my runners, taking the house key off the keychain and carrying it with me. Another student, Maria, ran for the first half with me and we talked and wheezed together in the heat.
Cars driving by stirred up choking dust and I gasped as I ran, praying for a bit of a breeze to cool the sweat pouring down from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. I envisioned arriving at the house, lying down in front of the fan until I could breathe again, taking a dip in the pool and then eating something and studying.
I arrived at the house and staggered through the gate, feeling like passing out. Stuck my key in the door. It wouldn’t go in. I tried turning it around, jiggling the door. No luck.
It was then I remembered hearing my landlady explaining that the green key opened the front door and the blue key, which I was holding, opened the French doors on the second story balcony.
I felt a sinking feeling. It was too hot and too far to run the miles back to school. I staggered dizzily around the house. All the windows were closed and locked, thanks to my meticulous housemate. My stomach was hurting, I was so hungry. The thought of waiting in the sun for an hour and a half without something to drink made me want to cry. I stood under the second story balcony and looked up the white stucco wall. There was nothing to stand on or climb on to get up there. Next door there was a half constructed house and I climbed over the brick wall into the yard and looked around for something I could drag over. There was a homemade wooden ladder half-buried in the overgrown grass and I tried to pick it up. It was extremely heavy and I doubted if I could get it over the brick wall or if it was even big enough to reach up to the balcony. I went back over the brick wall and looked up the wall. The only things on the wall were a skinny drainpipe going almost all the way up.
I took off my shoes and socks and dried my sweaty hands on my shirt. If I could get up that drainpipe…… I grabbed a hold of it and hoisted myself up, like a monkey on a pole. The drainpipe pulled away from the wall with a squeak and I held my breath, wondering if it was going to come off. I tried to move up a bit. Suddenly in the background, James Bond theme music began to play.
I was holding the key between my teeth and I hauled myself up a few more inches. My hands were slippery with sweat and I let go in turn and tried to dry them on my shirt. The powder on the stucco walls was coming off and making it hard to hold on. A few more inches…. The drainpipe was shaking and my muscles were burning from holding on. The sun was burning hot and my hands were slippery and I had that quivery feeling in my stomach like I was going to slip and fall and spill my guts on the thorn bushes and crushed cement below. I inched up the wall and after what seemed an eternity I finally got my fingers on the edge of the balcony wall. Then I was hanging off the balcony wall with one hand. Sweat was pouring down my face. I knew I had to let go of the drainpipe and grab for the wall with my other hand, but if I missed, I would probably fall. I clenched that key between my jaws and I let go and launched myself up with my last bit of courage. I got it. My fingers started to slip and I clawed with my feet against the wall and heaved myself up. I hauled myself up onto the railing, and then dragged myself over onto the floor of the porch. I collapsed onto my knees, shaking and gasping for breath. I couldn’t believe I had just scaled a two-story wall. I laughed and then the laugh turned into crying.
Sometimes life feels like I’m scaling a wall. There are things in my life right now that are wonderful and working out well. And there are things that are hard or confusing or terrifying. Sometimes I feel like I am going to slip and fall cause I just can’t hold on any longer or I just don’t have the strength to pull myself up. I may have had the courage to begin, but do I have the courage to keep going?
I knelt there overlooking the ocean and trying to catch my breath, and I talked to God. I told him how I felt I couldn’t go on by myself and that I didn’t know what was going on, and that I wished he would show me what to do.
I unlocked the door and took off my clothes and got my swimsuit and poured a drink and went out the front door to the pool. I lay in the pool, floating like a starfish, with my hair fanning out around me like dark seaweed. The sky was blue and there was a pale shadow of a leftover moon hanging above me. There was a hint of a breeze rustling the bougainvillea bushes in the garden and I stared up at the sky.

"With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall....... It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights." (2 Samuel 22)