Lying On The Road This Morning, I Was Thinking....

I've been walking in the morning with my neighbor, who also is a member of our church, and also a dear friend of mine. We talk a lot of home school talk (she home schooled her daughter for two years) and some women's ministry talk (she's the head of the women's group).

Kristy and I shake it up, we try not to do the same route more than one week. And we're lucky, we have a neighborhood with many streets and hills, and even close to a park with a walking trail. Today we headed to the park, made the circle and were heading home. Going along at a good little clip, conversation animated and good, we came to the end of the park. To get across the street to the next neighborhood, we'd have to go down a small ditch, back up and onto the road.

I'm not saying I did, not saying I didn't, but I coulda been so distracted that upon taking that last step onto the road, I tripped. And fell. On my left elbow and my right wrist. And landing flat &$% out on the road, with my legs sprawled down into the ditch, covered in dead leaves. That may not have happened, but if it did, I could imagine Kristy exclaiming "oh my gosh Stacey! Are you okay?!" And I, likely to be in instant pain, would crawl the rest of the way out of the ditch, onto my knees in the street for a sec (please no cars!), pop back up onto my feet and immediately scan the road, the park, the neighborhood in front of me and ask "did anyone see that?!".
She would have said nobody saw, but just looking at the above illustration, I'm not sure. And I worry my right elbow might be jammed. Or worse, fractured. I can move it, I can type, and clearly I can still draw elementary shapes (art wasn't my gift). Isn't that just the way? I do not have time for this. And if that did happen, why do adults hate the fall? Or even just a simple trip on a sidewalk? Are we too vulnerable then? Do we feel incompetent? Stupid comes to mind, but why? I'm not sure. I do know when I see someone fall or trip, I think Ohhhh, glad that wasn't me. Kids don't do that, kids feel the pain and want everyone to know it! Then they find mom or dad, crying and explaining it all in vivid detail, every last move. Certain mom or dad will know what to do to make this better.

Our children and family minister has a falling story. Involving a parent/child ball game, running in a skirt and falling diving face down into third. It really did look intentional. To her, poor thing, there wasn't a chance nobody saw that. Being as there was no point, she accepted help with grace and laughs about it now.

I wonder if there's a correlation here--we adults fall, we don't anyone to know, how embarrassing! That's a truth for some of our lives, we don't want anyone to know when we fail big. Hope nobody 'sees' it. It sometimes defines us. And when we fall big in front of others and there's no chance of hiding. That's when we do our fall with grace, I think. Might as well accept the hands that come to lift us up. Maybe life would be easier if we accept the hands of our neighbors, our friends, the very people God put into our lives. They have fallen too, they will again. If we fall, that is, not saying I did.

*HBDD