Keep Rollin'

The Haman house recently celebrated the birthday of our youngest daughter Mikaela. She turned 3 yrs. old this month. Mikaela to say the least is the "sparkplug" that keeps all of us busy (in more ways than one)! Mikaela had her mind set that she was gonna celebrate her birthday on wheels. So we took her Skate Galaxy to try out her blade skills. As soon as I got inside all these feelings from the "love-sick" days me and Rachel shared came running back. This place reminded me of all those dates at the skating rink where I pretended that I was actually comfortable out there on those shoes with wheels. Skate galaxy was crawling with kids. There was this chaotic swarm of kool-aid, kids, and cake! Immediately 2 kinds of skaters stood out: the experienced and the inexperienced. The experienced ones were skating backwards, zig-zaggin in and out of people. They were in their element. They were the cool kids. The inexperienced ones however clung to the walls of the rink for dear life (I never did that...lets make that clear). These "wall-huggers" would get brave for a moment and let go of the wall and WHAM! They would bust it. It looked like the ABC Wide World of Sports. The agony of defeat was spilled all over their faces. I saw some incredible spills that I wish I had on video! But I noticed something amazing: everytime they fell they would bounce back and keep rollin'. These back-breakers refused to let the pain of falling keep them from the joys of skating. I thought, "Wow, what if could live my life like that?" I want to be known as somebody who bounces back and keeps rollin'. I thought about Proverbs 24:16 that says that though a righteous man falls seven times he gets back up. I realized that the failure was not in the falling but in the staying down. Some would quit and say, "If God would have meant for us to skate, He would have created us with wheels!" I never want "wipe-outs" to make me into a "cop-out"!