Falling….

 

 

I’ve been working this blog all day long in my head quite literally. I didn’t touch my computer or see the inside of our house until after 4:30pm and then it was time to get dinner and baths out of the way (we try to ensure everyone has wind down time at night prior to bed.)

 

 

As I was watching our kids play today I was reminded of some pretty important points. Zeva has reached the lovely stage of learning to walk. She has fallen down so many times in the past week and a half, I do declare she’s about to give me heart failure because I worry about her getting hurt. Unfortunately, her precious head has a nice little (thank goodness it’s little) boo boo on it now. She has learned that falling isn’t the end of the world, and she is quick to bounce up laughing as she does it and resumes the effort to stand and walk on her own. She’s a tiny, and I do mean tiny bit more cautious than she was in the prior effort. She wants to move and walk-run so bad she can’t stand it. She was playing a baby’s version of chase with the boys last night. She’ll be walking on her own in no time I’m sure.

 

Jimmy decided to be a wonderful big brother today and try to help teach Delbert how to ride HIS bike (Delbert normally rides a little 12 inch bike, and Jimmy’s is an 18 inch bike.) However, Delbert was riding it with confidence until he hit the ground. So, we decided to take the training wheels off of Delbert’s bike today. So, I had to watch in cringing mode praying that he wouldn’t get hurt to terribly while he attempted to learn to ride his bike on his own without any assistance. He never conquered it today, but I’m confident it’s right around the corner.

 

We did go on a nice bike trail today in Columbia. It is filled with lots of great scenery. We got to interact with others while we walked in passing. There was lots of hills and it was challenging for me to get up those hills, but we managed. The kids and I totally enjoyed our time there. We hope to go back in the near future. Of course, we have a trip planned for Thursday to another part to ride with some other families from our school.

 

 

I was reminded of the amount of times I fell off of a horse while trying to learn to ride one. It got to be so much that my stepfather had a hissy fit telling my Mom that she needed to stop putting me on a horse by myself. Of course, as we all know that never happened because horses were my mom’s life. However, it taught me valuable lessons in life, and so I am grateful that she didn’t stop in her efforts to teach me. (Of course, she invested in four professional trainers to teach me from the time I could walk until I was about 7 years old.) I didn’t let her know I could truly ride until I was 13 years old and fell in love with Tripp, my horse that I trained and rode until he got severely sick when I was in college. I know there was 23 major falls that happened in the course of the years I rode horses. I have hoof indention’s on the top of my head from where horses have kicked me in the head. However, there was a time when people came knocking on our door wanting me to ride their horses through auction blocks because I had a knack for making a horse do whatever I wanted within five to ten minutes time, and make them appear to be remarkable animals (which a lot of the times they were great horses) and sometimes the owners started to regret their decision to sell the horse. I only managed to fall in love with one other horse besides Tripp in all the years of my riding them and the vast amount of horses I’ve rode.

 

 

We all fall in life. I honestly believe God lets us fall so that he can be there to catch us. Sometimes, he lets us fall so that we can grow into stronger more capable people. Just like a parent has to watch their kids fall so many times and sometimes really get hurt or earn scars of remembrances. We also fall into the traps of sinful lifestyles, but through the grace of God we are forgiven and can begin anew.

 

So even though there has been a lot of “falling” today, it has been an eye opening experience for all of us. We were reminded of God’s grace and also reminded that we need to keep on trying even when we fall down.

 

What memories do you have of falling while trying to learn something in your life?? Do you have any major memories of watching your kids fall while trying to learn a new skill???