The other day, as I was moving back into my dorm after Easter break it was pouring! And I mean POURING rain!! Driving conditions hadn’t been their best, and I wasn’t looking forward to carrying my loads in the rain, thankfully though a lot of what I had taken home had stayed home, but carrying everything in one load would have been disastrous. So I decided to try evening the load out into 2 loads. Which in hindsight was indeed a good idea. As I was carrying my laundry basket containing mostly clean clothes, my laptop in its case, my brand new Vera Bradley bag stuffed with books, and some leftovers, plus a bag of groceries hanging in the nook of my arm… I slipped on the mud and fell flat on the ground. For two Masses over the weekend I wore my 3 ½ inch pumps, one of them with a bent heel even! And no damage, yet one rainy day as I was wearing flat flip flops (white ones no less!) I slipped, somehow rolled my ankle, and skinned my knee. I can honestly say that I don’t remember the last time I skinned my knee.
But as I tried to stand up, testing the ankle that was giving me some pain, I was struck at how metaphorical the moment was for life. We fall all the time, sometimes it’s just a little stumble that really doesn’t affect us much at all, other than having an excuse to laugh at ourselves or a little wake up call to pay attention, but other times we fall down hard. When we experience those big falls, they usually scare the crap out of us once we realized what’s just happened, then we try to stand again on our own. Sometimes we can’t and sometimes we can. Sometimes we’re hurting too much to get back up right away and other times we know that if we don’t try to get up right away, we’ll be stuck sitting on the ground for who-knows-how-long. And even other times when we know that we probably have the ability to stand up, we just don’t feel like it and would rather wait until someone else comes along to push us up and cleans up our mess for us.
We can’t always depend on others to clean up our messes or give us a shoulder to lean on. Sometimes when God allows us to fall, He is cheering us on so that we know He has given us the strength to get up and move on again. Once we take into account all that has happened around us, we have to try to stand. Even when the entire world is raining down around us. God is there, cheering us on or waiting for us to ask for help when we can’t carry our overloaded laundry baskets by ourselves. Or maybe He’s even there holding an umbrella over our heads. It’s up to us though to at least try to get up, get ourselves together and move on. It’s just life. Even if we have to limp around for awhile.
Not only that, but God is also letting us be humbled. Sometimes, that even means our sins- our eternal short fallings, but not always. Jesus allows us to stumble when we’re trying to carefully watch out for where we’re going, perhaps it’s for us to wake up and realized He’s there, hand extended waiting for us to reach out to Him. Maybe He allows it to prevent us from vanity and pride. Let you heart rejoice in each humbling experience, that God found you worthy enough to be humbled.
Next time you fall, what will you do?
Love and warm wishes!
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