Falling

This morning had a very scary moment in it. I was on the regular Wednesday morning bike ride when one of my brothers got hit by a car. I watched the whole thing happen and I never want to see anything like it again. All I heard was a loud thump and crushing sound of carbon fiber breaking into pieces. Fortunately my brother was ok with the exception of a few bruises and scrapes - amazing considering he was travelling at about 20 mph when it happened.

The first thing I yelled was for someone to call 911. Scott was rolling around on the ground in some considerable pain. And like all athletes, he tried to shake it off and wand walk around as soon as he could. (I remember the last time I really sprained my ankle badly in a basketball game - the trainer came over to look at it and I screamed at him not to touch it.) Well I was telling Scott to get back on the ground and be still, and he didn't want to hear that (understandably so - unfortunately for us men our egos tend to get in the way and we think it is more masculine to be able to shake the injury off). I had mixed emotions. I was thankful he was up and walking and not seriously hurt, but I was afraid of the internal damage and the injuries that he may not be feeling at the moment.

The sheriff and the EMT's showed up and checked him out and he was on his way. Praise God he was not seriously injured. I felt guilty personally because I generally pray for safety on our rides and I hadn't yet when this happened. I will be more diligent in the future.

The four of us that stayed behind to make sure he was taken care of and got a ride home then proceeded to catch the group for our ride. Then the Lord gave me this picture of ECHAD.

The reality of life is that we are all going to fall (I pray hard that I never have a wreck on my bike, but most say it is not if, but when...). The tendency for men is to isolate when we fall. We don't want the help of others and honestly we believe we don't need the help of others. There is shame and embarrassment that we don't want to endure any longer than we need to and the presence of others jeopardizes that.

We need each other. Isolation is the key to destruction. our lives are not meant to be lived alone. When we fall we need to allow others to engage us and work it through. Sometimes we minimize the sin in our lives not realizing that something more internal, deeper in our soul is wounded. Others help us to heal. They help the righteous stand once again.

Our masculinity as men has little to do with our supposed capacity to deal with life's issues on our own and more to do with engaging other men and living in community with one another. The strength of our character is not measured by our own efforts to eliminate sin, but rather in our willingness to let others travel the journey with us.

Scott is doing well. To his credit he did allow the emergency personnel to check him out. Obviously this blog is not about Scott, but rather the picture that God gave me to convict me of my own tendencies at times to run the race alone.