I do have a difficult time admitting that I am getting older and that doing crazy activities is always a risk. Last year this time I had surgery to remove some skin cancer on my leg. This required me to be in a cast and crutches for a week. I will always remember making burritos on Christmas Eve as I hobbled along. This Christmas I am blessed with a bruised ‘bottom’. It is truly my own fault. We had an amazing Christmas Party for our tutoring kids and families. We had a great turn out between our tutors, special friends with gifts and the larger community. I rented a couple of the jumpers for the kids to enjoy. We did something different and got one of the more teen – adult jumpers, the gladiator. I had fun watching and decide to take one whoever was the champion of the morning. Matthew was left standing undefeated. So I not knowing if I could whip him jump up on the platform and end up easily taking him down not once but three times.
My joy of victory was short lived as the following week we go skating with the kids. We had a large group of over 40 and go to our now favorite place, Skateland in Mesa. I am a good skating and only have to watch out either for little kids that fall in front of you or someone crazy like Darious who speeds by you and accidentally trips you. Matt and I got into a little with the different sessions and he comes back for retaliation. This time he pushes me when I am really flying and end up having to slide out of the way to miss a little munchkin and collide with the hard wooden floor – ouch. I knew the second I connected with the floor that I would be in agony. I slowly remove myself from the floor and do a sportsman like shake it off routine. Little did I know how hard I had hit and how black and blue my tucsh would be.
After taking all of the kids home I end up on the couch in dire pain. I ask my Anne for the heating pad and wait patiently for the pain to subside. It didn’t and I was hurting most of the night. As I reveal to my Anne the extent of my injury she is shocked and does a laugh and oooh type of thing.
Is there some deep spiritual lesson in all of this? Maybe – act like an adult and you won’t get hurt? Maybe if you are going to play with the kids and act like the kids don’t be surprised when one of them gets even. I know that my physical body is fallen, falling apart and truly my responsibility to be wise in how I choose to use it or might I say abuse it. I think the better lesson which sounds more Christmas like is that just as Jesus came to earth from heaven and took upon himself flesh and blood and earthly life that I at times love to be like the people/kids God has brought my way. So I am being incarninational when I play with my New City kids or hang out with my grandmas and enjoy a donut.
I know that bumps and bruises are part of life and that without ever taking any risk nothing will happen. I know the typical phrase – nothing ventured nothing gained.
Ouch - Dave
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