I had watched kids ascend a climbing wall at the local college gym where I sometimes walk on an inside track in bad weather. I have seen such walls at amusement parks and on a cruise ship, and had a secret yen to give it a go myself: what would it feel like to be up on a wall with no way down other than to swing like a monkey on the rope attached to a human belayer (a term I was to learn) on the ground? Could I go more than three to four feet up a 100 percent vertical wall?

You could tell which ones were going to scramble all the way up to ring the bell, and which ones would be satisfied with a short climb and soon announce they wanted to descend.

So when our staff went on a retreat at Crooked Creek Christian Camp near Washington, Iowa this spring and they offered a chance to try a climbing wall supervised by trained staff people, I tentatively signed up. This would be a private, supportive atmosphere, I reasoned. I just wanted to see what it felt like. I didn’t tell my husband, thinking he would think I was taking needless chances, especially with our daughter’s wedding coming up.

Especially after the age of 50, people are encouraged to keep trying new things, find new hobbies, get out of our comfort zones. Stretch ourselves. I exercise moderately and do lots of physical work (loading and unloading firewood and other chores) at home, so I felt like I was in reasonably good shape to attempt the wall.

But what I found really encouraging in this attempt was that at the retreat, two other women over the age of 50 shared this same urge to try the wall. None of us wanted to be in the limelight, but were curious and somewhat adventurous.

The trained belayers gave us five minutes of instruction and told us how to strap on the harness that would keep us from falling. They also wore harnesses connected to a rope. A belayer controls the rope fed out to a climber. Wikipedia explains it like this: “Belaying is a critical part of the climbing system. By using a correct belaying method, the belayer can hold the entire weight of the climber by using relatively little force, and can easily arrest even a long fall. By using a mixture of belaying angle and hand-grip on the rope, a climber can be lowered gently by the belayer.”

So the climb was not risk free, but it didn’t seem overly dangerous, thinking of some of the rock climbing I’d done on real mountains and rocks.

To cut to the climb, I was able to ascend about 10 feet and while I would have liked to go higher, that satisfied me and I decided to quit before I did hurt myself or put a kink in my back. I got to see what it felt like. The other over-50 women both went higher than I did, being somewhat lighter and stronger. We were told to use the strength in our legs rather than pulling ourselves up by our arms.

I thought of the kids I’d seen ascending various walls: almost as soon as one began you could tell which ones were going to scramble all the way up to ring the bell, and which ones (like me) would be satisfied with a short climb and soon announce they wanted to descend.

In our group, a younger mother who happens to be single tackled that wall with the tenacity of the first type I described: I was not surprised to see her go at it three times until she reached the top. To me it was symbolic of the obstacles she’s overcome in her life and spoke volumes about her courage, strength and resolve.

One of the other women said that while she hated being the center of attention for her short climb, it was very affirming to hear the cheers and encouragement of the small crowd that egged her on to reach as high as she could go.

You may not be up for any kind of climb but there may be other challenges you’d enjoy tackling: a new job, position in a club, a new hobby, sport, or other activity. As long as we are alive, we should never stop growing, trying new things, thinking new thoughts. The God of all creation would surely have us be all that we can be.