WINSDAY WISDOM Session 205
Love First. Love Most.
It is as easy as slipping on ice or falling off a ladder.
Sometimes it comes with heartaches and pains.
I share some Winsday Wisdom with you today, not only a little older, but with a whole lot more aches and pains. This cold weather finds me a little more cautious, not so much from my added years, but from my compounded stupidity.
About this time last year, I fell on the ice and cracked my hip. I suspected it to be worse. I was being careful as I scraped the ice off my car windows. Everything was going fine…until I stepped to the north side of the vehicle. Both feet lost their contact with the driveway as I slipped on the ice from the northerner that came in the night before.
I landed on the side of my hip. My first thought was I hope none of the neighbors saw this. My second thought never made it into my mind because of the horrific pain. The hurt increased as I assessed the damage. I slid to the end of my driveway, and I could not get up. I needed help.
I grimaced and moaned as I grappled to get the cell phone from my winter jacket. My loving and adorable and kind and caring wife was inside on the couch in front of the fireplace. I called for help. There was no answer. Maybe she was on the phone talking to someone else. I tried two more times with no response.
By now, I wished a neighbor had witnessed my slippery demise. I cried out for help. All in vain as the strong wind whistled into my ear, “You stupid man!”
That’s right; I might be stupid, but I am a “man.” I can handle this. I tried to rise to my knees. Nope. I need to crawl. Can’t. I will slide up the slope. Wrong direction for sliding. So, I slithered like the snake that I am, inch by inch.
Eventually, I pulled my aching body into the edge of the garage where I rolled onto my back. That way, I could feel the pain better. I tried another unanswered phone call, even a text for “Help!”
I called my daughter in Colorado. She might be able to get to my aid before my wife wondered about my disappearance for several days. There was no answer. I realized they were talking to each other. I began to yell. I called out for Vicki. I screamed for help! All to no avail.
Finally, after what felt like hours of pain intolerance, the garage door to the house opened. Vicki was on the phone. She told our daughter, “I think your dad is hurt. I will call you back.” Yes, injured people need help. Stupid people need to be shown sympathy and patience.
I am sure you have fallen at times. It might have resulted in a serious injury. As I compose this, I vividly remember one of the four times I have fallen off a ladder.
For many years, I accessed the roof of my house without a ladder, using the fence, a pole, and a leap. It was just sheer athleticism is all I can tell you. I finally purchased a ladder to cut some limbs off a tree.
As I was trimming the timber (that sounds more manly), my chain saw ran out of gas. Why did I not fill it with fuel before I went up the ladder to the roof? It’s the same answer I give to most of my wife’s questions regarding my actions. “I did not think of that.”
As I came down to refuel, I took the wrong route. As I stepped onto the top of the ladder, my foot slipped. In a nanosecond, I had to make a reactionary decision: Either let my head hit on the brick wall or allow my body to crash through the window of the house.
In that nanosecond, I chose another option. I went into the “imaginary world of not” and thought it better to just jump backwards and use my athleticism and nimble, cat-like reflexes to land on my feet somewhere in the driveway. It worked…badly.
Somehow, my head avoided being splattered across the cement driveway. However, my pride had taken a big pounding. I fell twelve feet onto the concrete and landed on my back, not my feet. I looked up to see the ladder falling on my face and chest.
Yep! It was a scene right out of the Roadrunner cartoons where Wiley Coyote falls and then something falls on him.
Did it hurt? Well, yes! But I did the manly thing. I acted as if I were not hurt just in case Mrs. Kravitz was spying on this horrific, but humorous accident. [Note: Gladys Kravitz was the extremely nosy neighbor on the Bewitched TV series. She frequently peeked through her window curtains to observe the strange and unusual events going on at her neighbor’s house. She would yell for her husband Abner.]
As I discarded the face-planted ladder, I jumped to my feet. But I lost my balance and stumbled backward into the bushes. This cat gave up four of his nine lives in that stupid endeavor.
There was nothing left to do, but slowly roll my way into the garage. Lying in the unbearable pain of stupidity, I yelled for my wife. The only response was the startup sounds of the vacuum cleaner. This was going to take a while.
That night, so help me—I had survived with nothing more than aches and bruises—we went to my son Derek’s out-of-town baseball game. I dropped Vicki off at the door of the hotel. I parked around the side of the building. Backed the car into a parking spot. Raised the cargo door to get the luggage. I had hanger clothes in one hand, two travel bags in the other hand.
As I reached up to close the cargo door, I stepped back, stumbled onto the parking curb, and landed on my back. The hanging clothes fell across my face. The two bags fell on my chest. What a man! What a funny, stupid man!
You might conclude from this that I am a clumsy, unathletic good-for-nothing. Not true. I am just directionally insensitive.
Obviously, I have fallen many times. It really is not difficult to fall into stupidity! Even then, God was with me. God was with me on top of the house. He was with me when I was down on the concrete. God was with me in between, in those nanoseconds, saying, “You idiot.” The actual scriptural phrase from the #1 Textbook is, “You foolish man and frail creature of dust.”
You have experienced some physical pains this past year. It may have been disease; it may have been surgery; it may have just been something minor. All of us have experienced a little more physical pain than a year ago. Much of that pain is emotional pain like grief, loneliness, or stress.
As a precious friend recently said in response to his family’s unimaginable grief, “The Lord is with us. We have great grief, but we are so grateful to God. He used our grief to witness His greatness to so many hurting people.”
In the moments of pain and grief, we all have reason to take our gratitude to God to a higher level.
My physical injuries could have been worse. The emotional pain that you have been through this year could have been worse. We may be a little worse off, but we are here.
Are we falling into gratitude?
It is very important that we live out what we are learning about God’s presence and care…even when we are falling, or our life is falling apart.
Psalm 139 begins, “God knows what I do and wherever I go. He knows when I sit and when I rise, when I go out and when I lie down. He is familiar with all my ways. He knows all my thoughts. Before there is a word on my tongue, he knows even the secrets of my heart…God holds my right hand.”
Somehow, our lifelong journey falls into place.
You do not have to be flat on your back to count your blessings. But it might help you get a better perspective of life. Every moment matters. Every person matters. Every additional morning is precious.
If you are flat on your back and wondering what happened or what comes next, do a quick inventory. You and I are not the only people getting knocked down in life. If you need to cry, then cry. That is not a lack of faith. But focus on God through your tears.
When others have been knocked down in life, they need a caring heart and a helping hand. They do not need criticism or condemnation. They need hope.
What can you learn from falling?
You are never, ever—no matter whatever is going on in your life—you are never out of the sight and the care of your Heavenly Father. He is holding your hand, even when you are falling.
“Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me…You hold my right hand. You hold me tight” (#1 Textbook).
“I am the Lord Almighty God who is with you and for you. Do not be afraid” (#1 Textbook).
When the Biblical patriarch Jacob kept falling again and again, he moaned that “all these things are against me.” He later came to realize that all these things were used by God for his good. Surely, you have those moments when you feel as if all these things are against you. God is orchestrating them for your good.
As Jacob’s lost son, Joseph, later declared about all the bad things done to him by bad people, “They meant it for evil, but God intended it for good.” And God will use all the bad things done to you by bad people to bring you greater good.
Jacob and Joseph fell into gratitude. So can we. Even in great grief there is greater gratitude.
I am praying for me, and you that we will be awakened into a greater awareness of God’s presence in every area of our lives.
I am praying that we fall into greater gratitude.
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 