We all Fall Down

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that I fell a week ago today.  I stepped on a small rock/piece of gravel, my foot rolled out from under me, and I fell.  Hard.  On my right knee (thankfully, on the knee that is already giving me problems, so I still have one good knee!).  Also on the heel of my hands; even though I know from karate that I should fall onto my forearms, I put out my hands instead.  I let out a little "ugh!" when I fell.  I knew that I was ok, but not ok.  I knew I needed to get out of the road, but I was enough on the side of the road that I really didn't want to move for a few minutes.  I wanted to wiggle toes and see if I had done more serious damage than I had.  My husband came to my side, got the ice that I asked for, and the people whose home we were in front of, on our way to get some information, came out and helped as well.  I got to the grass, laid my head on a cushion that happened to be in the car, and had my knee cleaned and bandaged.  Hal continues to clean it and dress it, because I can't reach it well am really useless with gross stuff. 

All it took was a small rock.  Not big enough to notice outright, but big enough to trip me up and lay me low.  A stumbling block, if you would.  Don't we all have stumbling blocks in our lives?  Some are physical, as mine was - addiction, sexual misbehavior.  Some are situational - the loss of a job, a promotion going to a lesser qualified (at least in our eyes) colleague, failing a class.  Some are temptations, things or ideas that get between us and God.  Food, shopping, alcohol...oh, just one more piece of pie...just one more drink...I NEED this new pair of shoes Incidentally, I was wearing a new pair of shoes when I fell - I told Hal to take them off my feet and THROW THEM OUT - thankfully he didn't (but they are still in the car).  It was not the shoes, after all, that caused my fall. But I was looking for something to blame, aside from my inability to watch where I was walking. 

Don't we all?  It's not MY fault that I weigh more than I did 10 years ago, it's those darn cookies.  It's not YOUR fault that you lost your temper, he made you mad.  And so rather than be on the lookout for those stones along the way, rather than land on our forearms so we can get up more easily, we look for scapegoats - like my cute new shoes - and eliminate them rather than get to the real problem.  And we fall again, and place blame elsewhere again, and...well, you get the point.

My knee is healing well.  My pride - yeah, that is healing too.  But I should not have fallen in the first place.  None of us should.  Let us look around at those things that make us stumble.  Let us keep our eyes on our path - not downcast, just alert.  Let us step well, let us step firmly, and let us step on solid ground.