Swinging like a monkey from our play set as a young child, she looked more monkey than human. My little sister got herself into some of the craziest situations. One time, she pulled a TV on top of herself, another time she ate a bottle of super glue when my mom was trying to break a figurine that I had broken of my friends. She tried to do gymnastics off the side of her bed and ripped a piece of her nose off. She never let anything stand in the way of a good time. She was probably around 5, (although according to her, her entire childhood happened between 6 or 7), when she was playing on the swing set. Using it in ways “normal” kids wouldn’t. She was hanging by one arm, climbing on this or that scurrying around like a little monkey, long hair flying this way or that. She was down the hill playing with our neighbor friends and the next thing we were aware of, one of those neighbors came up and told my mom that she was hurt and my mom needed to get down there right then.
So down my mom rushed. The hill we lived on was NOT an easy hill to traverse very fast, but she got down there pretty quickly. I don’t remember a lot of what happened other than my sister had to go to the hospital because her arm was broken. The x-rays saw it was broken in 2 places, they had to do surgery and keep her overnight. Neither my older sister or I had ever broken anything, EVER so this was all new to me. My little sister picked out a HOT pink cast to wear and had to have it all the way up her arm, it didn’t just stop at the elbow. She also had to sleep with it elevated. Rolling our eyes, my older sister and I were secretly jealous that she got a cast because they were so cool.
One thing that really impresses me still to this day (my baby sister is a very impressive little girl), was that she never really let it get in her way. Some kids are so resilient, they are going to find a way to play and have a good time even if they have a HUGE smelly cast on their arms or legs. Most the time, these kids don’t want to just sit on the sidelines and wait. So even though a huge obstacle was thrown at the little thing, she got right back in the game and used her cast as a prop.
I was never that way. One time we were at my parent’s friend’s house at a beautiful horse barn. My older sister and I were off playing in the picture perfect red barn on top of the rolling hill. It had a gravel drive leading to it and was surrounded by the beautiful brown horse fence. We were taking turns jumping off the hayloft into the soft hay underneath. At least that was the intention. My older sister was never one to go first on things like this, so being the “brave” one, I jumped out, off the 50 foot hay loft (really probably around 20 foot) hoping to land on the soft and lovely pile of hay on the bottom. Well… I MISSED THE HAY. For those of you that know me would not be surprised at my klutziness. I am the walking example of Murphy’s Law. I crab walked back to the house and told my parents what happened, all the time determined that I had broken my foot. (Remember that I wanted that cast) It was just a sprain, but I let that thing take me out of the game for weeks!
There are two kinds of people in this world: people like my little sister who no matter what the circumstance that is thrown at them will get up and get back into life; and then there are people like me, who when something is thrown at them, sit on the sidelines and sulk and say, pity me, I am crushed. Don’t get me wrong, every once in a while, everyone needs to have some down time, but it doesn’t have to be all the time. Whether we want it to or not, life continues to go and move all around us, even when something horrible happens.
When something happens, you have two choices; to sulk, or to say “okay, that happened, lets get on with our life.” I am trying to be the 2nd kind of person.
2 Corinthians 4: 7-9 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
AMEN, and AMEN!
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