I had an accident yesterday, while running around the pool like a manic trying to tackle my fun loving husband who had just pushed me in the water.
It turns out those signs that sternly warn against running while at a pool know of what they speak.
Oh, but it was glorious fun a short while. I was running like the wind, I was running as if I were ten years old again, unencumbered by hips. I leaped nimbly in and out of the garden bed and swiftly rounded corners, ever gaining on my goal.
And then, out of no where, a blur of black; Abby, coming to Keith's rescue, or simply caught up in the excitement of it all.
She brushed by me mid-stride, I wobbled, I thought with relief: "Hey! I caught my balance; I'm not going to fall after all!"
And then the concrete was in my face and I was sliding along on my stomach at a frightening clip, arms outstretched.
Everyone was horrified. I was embarrassed, thinking, "Why can't I ever act my age?"
But I wasn't really shaken until I saw Keith's ashen face.
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Sweetie," he murmured. He attempted, gingery, to put his arms around my wet, bleeding and dazed self.
"That's not fair!" I retorted, brightly. "You can't have an accomplice like that!"
"Honey, you took a bad fall," Keith tried to inform me, but at the time, I felt nothing. I was just numb all over.
Eventually, I looked down and noticed that my hands were filling up with blood. I limped into the kitchen and tried to wash the blood off.
Layers of my skin had been peeled off and bunched up near the bottom of my hands. My left knee was swelling up and the skin had been scrapped off the side of my left foot.
Keith took over emergency operations; both his training and his character came out in full force. There was no stopping him. He poured peroxide on everything, applied band aids and then, for good measure, wrapped endless layers of ace bandages over my hands and loose socks over my feet.
This was difficult for me to let him do. Usually, I become like a wounded bear when injured; I back myself against the wall and snarl at anyone who comes within a two foot radius of me. Even if all I have is a splinter.
Then our dialogue goes something like this:
Keith, ever so sensibly: "Let me just look at it."
Me, hunched over my wounded foot and glaring: "No! Stay away from me! Don't you touch me!"
"I just want to look at it."
"Hell no. I know you. I'm going to do it. Leave me alone!"
"I just want to help you, you crazy woman! Now let me look at it!"
"You stay away from me! I'm warning you!"
But yesterday, I was oddly docile and let him go to town. Partly because the poor guy felt so guilty, though it wasn't his fault.
"I was the one running," I reminded him.
"I know, but I shouldn't have pushed you in the pool," he miserably replied. "I'm so sorry."
"I didn't have to run after you; I could have just called you a nasty name, and that would have been the end of it."
"It's my fault."
"Accidents happen."
Especially when one is running wildly around a pool.
I took off the bandages this morning; some of it had stuck to bits of the open wound that hadn't been covered by the extra large band aid. Getting that off was not fun.
Last night, I was thinking about Mary Magdalene running to the disciples and declaring passionately that she had seen Jesus; that He was alive.
I thought about how that might have gone over; how John might have come up and put his arm around her shoulders, because:
"But these reports seemed to the men an idle tale ([c]madness, [d]feigned things, [e]nonsense), and they did not believe the women." (Luke 24:11, Amplified)
"Mary, Mary," John might have said. "Poor girl. I know it's so hard; we all loved Him. We all want Him to be alive. But you have to be reasonable. He's gone."
And Peter might have added, "Are you sure you weren't just imagining things? It was probably someone who just looked like Him. I thought I saw Him yesterday, in the crowd near the Temple."
It would have been easy to discount Mary's story. After all, she was a woman, she was clearly emotional, and everyone knew her history.
Then, when the two disciples who had met Jesus on the road shared their story, they would have met the same reasoning- because it is so reasonable to think that way. In fact, some of the Twelve might have even gotten angry at that point.
"He died!" maybe Thomas declared with angry grief. "He's gone! Wishing that He's here won't make it less real! You didn't even recognize Him half the time you were with Him. Your story makes no sense. Clearly, you just want Him to be still alive, so your mind is making things up. But it's over. It's finished. They even took His body away from us.
"Now we have to start over!" maybe Thomas would have continued. "We have to carry on His legacy as best we can, but no one will listen to us if we go around talking like crazy people. We have to come to terms with what is real."
I was thinking about these things, and I remembered what Jesus said to them, when He finally appeared to them:
"Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29)
Or, to put it another way:
"Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
"But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength." (I Corinthians 1:21-25, NLT)
