Slip Slidin' Away

Sorry I haven't kept up to date lately, but as I stated last week, I took a pretty serious fall almost 2 weeks ago and have been spending most of my time in the lounge chair with an ice pack and a bad attitude!

The whole story of my slip and slide adventure is almost humourous now (well, ALMOST...) but at the time, it wasn't too funny at all. During this winter's wretched weather, I've been SO careful. We've had many, many inches of snow, topped with sleet, ice, and freezing rain which, over time had turned to a virtual skating rink in many places. Since I am suffering from advancing age and a lack of good health insurance, I'd been overly cautious ever time I set a toe outside the door. I bought those nifty little ice cleat things you can strap to the bottom of your shoes and I often used the snow shovel as a "crutch" to creep to the car. At all times, I walked in a crouch, arms outstreatched, ready for a potential fall. I was SO aware of every step and certain that no patch of ice was going to bring me down. I was on my guard!

Of course, as soon as we experienced a warm spell and everything began to melt, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was so wonderful to walk outside on dry pavement and not have to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame while doing it! I definitely relaxed and went confidently out the door, assured that every step was safe.

What I forgot to take into consideration was the fact that, underneath all that melting snow and ice, the earth had turned into a sea of cold, slippery mud. The first time I set my foot off the driveway and onto the yard, that foot went flying out from under me and down I went. Unfortunately, my shoulders were headed in a different direction from my backside and, as I fell, I heard an audible "pop" in my back. The pain hit me like I'd been tackled before I even landed.

It was one of those "your life flashes in front of you" moments. For several minutes, I lay on my back in icy, sticky mud, almost unable to breathe and incredibly panicked about what I might have done to myself. After a while, though, I figured out that I could wiggle my toes and move my legs, so I managed to sit up, with Zach's help, and roll over to crawl out of the mud to where I could try to stand up on the driveway. I knew that, if I attempted to get back up in that mud pit, I'd just end up falling down again.

The short version of the story is that I didn't end up doing permanent damage, but have really struggled over the last couple of weeks with alot of discomfort and rehabilitation. It was a very painful lesson in what ELSE to look out for in winter!

While I've been sitting and doing not much else, this whole incident made me think of how we run into such similar circumstances in our lives. When I first came to know the Lord and repented of my life without Him, I was SO ready to take on sin! Having lived a pretty decadent life before getting saved, I was sure I knew where ALL the "slippery spots" might be coming up...and I was definitely on my guard! Nobody was going to be able to throw anything at me that I would get tripped up on. I was walking through life, kind of like walking on that ice, with my head down, ready for any temptation. I wasn't going to slip!

Unfortunately, after a time, when my initial passion wore off and I got a bit too comfortable, the enemy of my Salvation knew exactly what to toss in my path to make sure I took a big fall. While I was busy watching out for all sorts of obvious sins that I thought would be like those big patches of ice this winter, the devil was preparing the "mud" for me to step in! Into my path, as I walked confidently staying on the straight and narrow, he planted a tall, handsome, blue-eyed 6-footer who was just smitten with little old me...and just "happened" to be a devoted atheist! As passionate as I had been about my faith, I was even more passionate about my new relationship and, needless to say, Christ quickly moved downward on the priority list! I slipped and I fell big time! This is not to say that anything that happened to my relationship with the Lord was the fault, in any way, of the charming young man that I fell for--it was just that, I became SO infatuated with him and wanted to please him to the point that, when he said church was silly and he didn't see the need to go, neither did I any more.

In time, we did go our seperate ways and it was then that I realized just how badly I had hurt myself. It was so much harder to get back up and come home to the Lord after having fallen right back into the old ways I had just repented from! Like the other day when I fell in the mud, I lay there in my sin for a long time before I "came to myself" and crawled back out to the solid Rock and got on my feet.

That was a long, long time ago, but the lesson was not lost on me. Any time that I get to believing that I am "there" and that my relationship with Jesus is just hunky-dory, I KNOW I'd better sit myself, get humble, and ask the Lord to show me exactly where I'm about to go off the path. I am always aware that the enemy has NEVER forgotten about me and will always be on the ready to throw an stumbling block in my way if I take my eyes off of where they should be.

No more slippin' and slidin' for me--in both the literal and spiritual mud! But, at the very least, I have definitely learned that, if I do misjudge my steps and end up flat on my back, I don't have to keep wallering where I'm laying, but I can get up, pull myself up, and deal with the consequences, knowing that the mud will wash off and I will be whole again in time.

Still, I think I'll try to stay on the solid ground in the first place! It hurts a WHOLE lot less!