Lessons learned from STAIR SLIDING
So, I have a new and exciting story to tell you about my stupidity! Yes, I know….it’s been a while…but you had to have known that I was bound to do something dumb eventually. I am Mel after all….
So for the last month I have been spending Saturday nights with the Jones. As you may or may not know we started a new contemporary service at church and I am involved in the drama…Okay, Matt and I are the drama. So, I’ve had to get to church at 8:30 in the morning to rehearse and for sound check. As many of you also know….I am NOT a morning person. I would rather jump through rings of fire, be approached by a wild animal, and jump off a cliff with no safety net then get up in the morning! I like sleep, what else can I say? Anyways, to avoid me having to get up so early to drive over the mountain to get to church, and possible grumpiness, the Jones were kind enough to give me a key and let me stay in their beautiful home…which I may add will probably never be the same after my experiences there!
So last Saturday, I got there and the kids as always were excited Mel was there. They proceeded to tell me about this cool new ‘activity’ they had come up with the night before….stair sliding. Now, I know what you’re thinking….is stair sliding actually sliding down stairs? Why yes it is. The ‘activity’ is covering the stairs with the slickest blankets you can find in the house, putting every pillow you can find in the house at the bottom of the staircase, and then climb into a slick sleeping bag, wrap it around you and then push yourself down the stairs. You can do this either on your bottom or on your belly….i.e. face first. The kids apparently had tons of fun doing it the night before so of course they were just waiting all day for Mel to come over so she can play too!
Let’s just pause here…..
Quick reminder….Mel is 31 years old…I know she looks like she’s 18, BUT SHE’S NOT! This was one of those rare moments when I remembered that I was Mel and that I was old and that this was NOT an old person activity!
We can continue now.
So I told the kids NO! I value my limbs and my life way too dearly. Well, little Kaitlyn, 9 years old, wouldn’t stop begging. But I stuck to my guns! For a while anyways….
Dinnertime came and Kaitlyn piled her plate with TONS of food, getting the biggest piece of chicken I have ever seen in my life. It was the whole chicken, feet and all! Then she piled on beans and rolls and more. We all started to get onto her b/c there was no way she would eat it all. And that’s when I made my fatal mistake! I decided to make a bet with her….I would slide down the stairs if she ate EVERYTHING on her plate. I was pretty confident in my bet….otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. Everyone there, even her mom, said there was no way she would eat all that food. She had never eaten that much in her short life of 9 years. So, I wasn’t worried…..
But as I learned on that fateful Saturday night, never bet a 9 year old. They will do ANYTHING to win…including eating every single bite of food on their plate. She had but a few more bites on her plate and she shoved the food in her mouth, got up from the table, and jumped up and down while she chewed….hoping that would speed up the digestion of her previous food. Well….I’ll be darn if it didn’t work! She took one final swallow and screamed a cheer of I told you so! I hit the floor in defeat, knowing that this might be the last night I would walk.
So, as a good youth minister does, I held true to my promise. Thankfully, her mom made us wait so we could digest food….and I could pray that nothing would break, including me!
But alas, food digested, and two very eager young ladies ran upstairs and grabbed pillows and blankets and cameras! Yup, cameras! So I got up from my comfy position on the couch, prayed one last time, and headed for my doom.
As I wrapped myself up in a green sleeping bag and Kaitlyn told me to hold on tight and I looked at that big pile of pillows at the bottom of the stairs I thought two things….how fluffy are those pillows….and how stupid could I be? I would soon find the answer to both.
On the count of three Kaitlyn pushed us down the stairs. Now I admit, going down on your bottom hurt…I have a skinny butt so it was all bone hitting those stairs. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought. As a matter of fact, it was kind of fun! And the kids really enjoyed watching me do it so I thought I would go down another time. Well, one time turned into another and another and another, until I was just plain tired. But alas, I wasn’t done apparently. This is when I learned that you don’t just go down on your bottom, you go down face first.
Now, again, I’d like to point out my age. 31! Just a quick reminder.
I was a little leary thinking face first down the stairs into a pile of pillows…hmmmmmm. I didn’t want to hurt my face…or my neck…or my back…or anything for that matter. I should probably quit while I’m ahead. So I said no.
You all know what’s gonna happen next. Yup, I got suckered in! Well, Maegan went down face first to show me how much ‘fun’ it was. It didn’t look like fun. You went VERY fast and you went very fast face first might I add. I thought she wasn’t going to stop and she was just going to slide straight through the pillows and hit the door. But she just laughed and laughed saying it was soooooo much fun. Then Kaitlyn did it. Then they teased me that a 9 year old and 14 year old was braver than me.
If you know me at all, you know I don’t like to be outdone. Those sneaky little kids knew that. They knew I would cave if they teased me.
And I did. I caved. I knew it was a bad idea. But I did it anyways because I am stupid.
Another pause —— You know I can’t write a devotion without tying God into it. So, as Marcia asked, how in goodness name can I take this moment in my life and turn it into a lesson about God? Well, we can always go back to that age old lesson of not listening to God and that can lead to stupid mistakes. But I’ve done that…see the stupid girl devotion. I could go with the value of family and friends because I was thinking at this moment I may never see them again…but again, it’s been done. So, let’s take a different route.
Back to the story. There I was, poised at the top of the stairs, on my belly, my face looking down at stairs, blankets, and pillows that no longer looked fluffy. As I looked down thinking what have I gotten myself into….here’s the moment God comes in… I thought, now sometimes life is just like that.
Sometimes you are looking face first into something kind of scary. You come to a point in your life where you have nowhere to go but into something that looks or feels frightening or intimidating. You are leaving your comfort zone and reaching out for the unknown. Maybe you got there because of a decision you made. Maybe you got there because you had no choice. Every teenager, every person, has those moments. It can be a teenage girl who makes the wrong decision and gets pregnant. It can be a teenage boy who got a teenage girl pregnant. It can be a senior deciding where to go to college. It can be that you are moving away from home for the first time. It can be a first kiss. It can be a last kiss. It can be having someone you love be stolen from you because of some awful tragedy like cancer or an accident. It can be as small as a fight with your best friend or as big as your parents divorcing. It can be the beginning of a relationship. It can be the end of a relationship. It can even be an adult who has decided to move away from her friends and her very secure job to take care of her family. Any new beginnings can be scary! A lot of endings are the same!
So, I am thinking I have probably hit a few nerves. If I didn’t, go back and re-read the last paragraph. EVERYONE has had a moment in their life where there is uncertainty or some kind of scare.
So now that we’re looking down the stairs face first into a few sparse unfluffy pillows….what do we do? Now that we are looking into some uncertainty…what do we do? Now that we’re scared…what do we do?
Well, the Bible is here to help. The Bible is full of scripture that can help us in any of these situations. Here’s just a few…
As much as we hate it, life’s trials will make us stronger. James 1:2-18 says “Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything…God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterwards they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him….” Get your Bibles out and look the whole thing up. (That’s a lot to type people). This is how I would sum all of this up….God will never give you more than you can handle…correction…more than you and Him can handle together. See, you’re never alone. He is with you in whatever trial you are facing. And that trial that you’re in…believe it or not…no matter how scary it seems now…you’re going to come out on the other end of it…AND you will have learned from it AND you will be blessed because you did make it to the other end of it. During these scary ‘storms of life’ our faith gets strengthened, thus our relationship with God gets strengthened, and thus our lives are blessed. So patiently endure whatever you are looking at or whatever you’re in…no matter how scary it may be!
Another one….much deeper….Psalm 23:4…”Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” This is an easy one to sum up…..If God is with us even as we ‘walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ won’t he be with us in any other valleys we may find ourselves in? We may be facing some big things or even some little things (like sliding face first down stairs), but no matter what we face, God is with us, comforting us all the while! I can’t help but feel better already. God was with me on top of the stairs as I looked at my doom. God is with me as I try to move my life from Cleveland to Blairsville! Thank goodness!
Last one….not quite as deep…Proverbs 3:5…”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” This is a personal fave of mine. Why? Honestly, I can’t imagine trusting myself to…..MYSELF! I mess up every day. I do some stupid stuff…stair sliding is a perfect example. If I ran my life…I’d be in big trouble. That’s why I am so glad that I trust God with me. I trust Him in my little things and my big things, and you should to. Who better to trust with your life the very one who gave it to you? Or for that matter the very one who gave up His son’s life for that life you’re living now? Made you think….didn’t I?
There are TONS more scriptures in the Bible that can help you when you are facing uncertainties or frightening situations. Look in Psalms. Psalms 3, 4, 27, 46, 49, 56, 91, and 118 can help you out when you are afraid. When you feel alone, try Psalms 9, 10, 12, 13, 27, 40, and 43. When you are distressed, go to Psalms 13, 25, 31, 40, and 107. When you are facing danger (had to throw that one in because I am about to go down the stairs head first) try Psalms 11. Facing big decisions, try Psalms 1 and 119. Have some doubt, try 34, 37, and 94. When you want courage, try Psalms 11 and 42…very handy for people like me who do stupid things. When you need some guidance, try Psalms 1, 5, 15, 19, 25, 32, and 48. When you are needing some hope, try Psalms 16, 17, 18, 23, and 27. Worried? Try Psalm 37. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg….that’s just Psalms!
If you need more, and there’s plenty more, try this. Flip to the back of your Bible to this fancy thing called the concordance. Look up what you want…like the word fear. My concordance has over 25 scriptures for that word alone!
So, now that I have tied God into my stair sliding….oh wait, I need to finish the story. So there I am staring down the stairs of death….I mean the stairs of the Jones house. So, on the count of three…or something like that…I push off face first on my extremely sensitive belly which has endured several surgeries….and go FLYING down the stairs. I think I broke the barrier of sound, either by how fast I was going or by the scream I let out. So I went speeding down the stairs, feeling every single one of those stairs…and went sliding into the pillows…actually I think it was more of a tumble because I am convinced that when I hit the last stair I literally caught nothing but air before I fell on my right side, face and arm and all, into pillows and hardwood flooring. The girls were beside themselves laughing and I just sat there with face into hardwood and pillows thinking I think I have broke something…on my body! Alas, Kaitlyn jumped on me and I realized that I was not broken because I could still move all my body parts to throw her off of me. I then proceeded to crawl from the stairs to the couch where I asked for ice and rest! I stayed on that couch for the remainder of the night while the girls laughed at the pictures and the videos and I just moaned. The next several days were a constant reminder of my stupidity seeing as I could not lift my arm to even write on the board.
So what did I learn from this? Did I learn anything? Well, yeah! First of all, don’t bet with a 9 year old! Second of all, I am older than I look. Thirdly, I am older than I act…duh! Fourthly, yes, I can make devotion about ANYTHING! Lastly, even though it looked very scary and I thought I wasn’t going to make it….I made it! I did get some bumps and bruises along the way….just like we do in life….but I learned from them! And that is what counts!
By the way, I know you’re all wondering….where is the video and the pictures? Let’s just say Maegan doesn’t want to walk through the valley of the shadow of death anytime soon so you won’t be viewing any of those! ☺
