Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Step(s) (11/29/12)
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TITLE: Accident Prone | Previous Challenge Entry
By Llewelyn Stevenson
12/06/12 -
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Looking up I stepped awkwardly on the edge of the curb and sprawled into the face of passing traffic. The greeting turned to a scream and the blaring horn audibly pierced my heart, squealing rubber swerved alongside my unavoidable fall.
“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” the rhetorical question bellowed from the car.
Rising awkwardly I limped to the sidewalk and sat down, cradling my right arm that pained acutely blood seeping from the graze caused by the rough bitumen when I instinctively turned my back to the approaching car. The accusative questions continued in a verbal bashing I had no desire to respond to, only aware of the hurt that throbbed and pierced my forearm, just below the elbow.
Finally, unable to put up with the incessant barrage of nagging I responded with a rude expletive, which brought the attention of my abuser to my wounds, “Are you alright mate?”
What a stupid question, did I look alright? However, he found redemption in driving me to the hospital.
Emergency was laborious and the physician’s decision was to keep me hospitalised overnight for observation. Are you aware how nauseating it is to have someone feeling you from head to toe asking if anything hurts? I was informed that there was a tyre mark on the shoulder of my shirt where I had bumped into the vehicle as I fell. I recalled the pain from the incident but the pain in my arm had superseded its importance. Anyway, it’s all kind of irrelevant as my path of destruction proceeded from emergency to ward – not on the same day, of course.
A few days later I was allowed to roam the passages of the hospital to alleviate my irritable boredom of being bedfast. I had proceeded to the cafeteria without incident, enjoyed a latte coffee and was returning to the ward when a concerned voice called from above, “Mind the step.”
Looking up my toes caught the step’s edge and I fell up the stairway. Protecting my injuries I turned myself to the right, trying to catch my fall with my left hand. Oh the agony. I lay, cradling my left arm with my already injured right arm.
Another visit to emergency revealed a fracture about two thirds of the way up the forearm.
Now I lay in my hospital bed, one arm bandaged – the other in plaster. Life’s like that, I suppose.
I lay there, contemplating and thought, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.”
I wondered who had ordered my steps that accidental day. I hadn’t planned to have the accident; I didn’t fall over the steps purposefully. Actually the whole episode was hilarious in a way. I wondered how long it took to learn not to be distracted, I don’t think I’ll ever master it. My mind is always on the go: darting from one thought to another, pulled effortlessly by all sorts of attractions, sensible or not.
My musings led me to continue, “Though he fall, he will not be cast down.”
There it was. The Lord did not prevent us from having the occasional accident; he lifted and healed us in them.
What was it? “The Lord will not allow you to be tempted beyond your capabilities but will use such things and show you how to avoid them.”
We do have accidents in our Christian walk and, like the medical system God aids and heals us.
Yeah, I know, not the exact wording, but in truth I will, in the short term, at least be a bit more careful around curbs and steps. I’m sure it works that way in our spiritual walk as well.
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