“Boom!”
Down he falls…
“Boom!” I say…
Smiling, he gets up and starts running again…
Faster than his year-and-a-half old legs can carry him…
He looks at me and grins…
He understands the pattern…
When he falls down I say, “Boom!”
This time he doesn’t even get all the way to his feet before he falls again…
“Boom,” I shout.
Down he goes…
Laughing
“Boom!”
Again…
“Boom!”
And again…
“Boom!”
laughter shakes his whole body
We have a new game…
“He’s having a great time,” I think…
“Because he doesn’t know the rules of the real game…”
“He doesn’t know the goal is to stand up and walk… not to fall down.”
Later that day, I start a do-it-yourself project.
I would like to tell you I am great at do-it-yourself projects.
I would like to tell you my skills are so high I could become a professional handy man.
I would like to tell you all of those things…
But if my family heard me…
They’d laugh louder and longer than that happy toddler.
I begin my project in a great mood.
Simple I think.
I’ll be done in ten minutes.
I need a staple gun.
I have a staple gun…
Somewhere.
Didn’t I use it last year?
Thirty minutes later, I give up looking and head to the store.
Fail #1. “Boom!”
I am not laughing.
“Need staples?” asks the clerk.
“No, I ‘ve go plenty!”
An hour after I started my ten-minute project…
I’m home with a staple gun and staples…
I try to load the staple gun.
The staples don’t fit.
Fail #2 “Boom!”
No laughter anywhere.
Back to the store.
Two hours after I started my project, I finally stand with loaded staple gun in hand…
I won’t bother you with details of Fail #3. “Boom!”
Or Fail #4. “Boom!”
Finally, three-and-a-half hours after starting, I finish.
My good mood is gone.
Fail #5. “Boom!”
Perhaps I am the one who doesn’t understand the real rules of the game…
Perhaps it is the toddler who understands…
Who knows the real goal is simply to keep trying…
And have a good time doing it…
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4
