Have you ever had a day like this? Where everything has gone wrong?
Or is there a time when you've just crumbled, like this
bread?
Just the other day, I felt just like these loaves of
Snickerdoodle bread, literally falling in a grocery store and going SPLAT! Yep, I tripped with a bowl of fruit in one
hand and a birthday card in another, and did the most magnificent belly flop
ever! Not tripping and landing on my backside… No, that would've graceful in
comparison. Instead I was completely laid out on my stomach, the fruit bowl and
card flew ahead of me, while I flopped on the concrete floor of that grocery
store.
Talk about going splat! And in front of all the people in
this very crowded store.
Before you even say something against the store, or lawsuit,
or even get angry because I fell in a public place, I must say the two
employees of the store were immediately by my side. And a young man in his 20s who was at the
nearest check-out line immediately reached for me, extending his hand and
helping me to my feet. I think he knew instinctively that I wanted to get up as
soon as possible.
Of course, once on my feet, I realized how hard I had banged
my knee. But nothing was broken, I was standing.
I'm sure I was a bright shade of red, so I chose not to have them write up an
incident report. Amazingly, the fruit
bowl stayed in tact so it was thrust into my hands, again by the caring young
man, and I was on my way.
It was only after I got into my car that the tears came.
OUCH! And of course, I was a little in shock.
One second you're walking out of the store, on your way to your church
life group meeting, and the next you're splayed at on the floor, having done
what I'm sure was a spectacular belly flop.
I'm surprised my breast implants didn't break!
Once in the car, I wasn't sure what do next. My hubby was home sick, and I was scheduled
to facilitate our life group meeting that night. But I was happy to be in my
car, away from all of the prying eyes of everyone in the store.
What about you? Have you had a day when everything goes
wrong? When you're whole day takes a wildly different turn?
How many of us lash out in anger? How many lash out with
tears? How many of us want to crawl in a hole and hide?
Part of me wanted to stay on the ground (I immediately sat
up from my belly-flopped, splayed out position), just to have a moment to
collect myself. But there were too many people around. I can still hear the
gasps of those who witnessed my great tumble.
But the other part of me wanted to run…rather limp…away as
fast as I could. Being angry never really crossed my mind. Suing the grocery
store seemed ridiculous – nothing was
broken, no permanent damage. So, I drove on to my life group meeting and my
friends.
I turned to them, tears in my eyes, trembling, and feeling
somewhat ridiculous. And they showered me with hugs, ice packs and Tylenol. And
onward we went with our meeting. I have no idea what I said, or how well the
meeting was facilitated, but I think I just wanted to keep pushing forward. To
move on as quickly as I could from the spectacle of falling down.
Could I have done that had I chosen to stay on the floor? Or
crawled inside a proverbial hole? As tempting as that was, I think it's always
best to move forward from the days where we go splat.
I want to be the type of person who can put the past behind
me. If I had crawled into my shell or
driven straight home, I would've missed that time with friends – embarrassed as
I was to have them see my tears - just from a silly fall.
There's always something to learn from those tougher days –
in the times when we stumble and even fall on our faces. The beauty is, we don't have to stay in that
place. We can find a way to limp out of there, and find healing with friends
and loved ones, even during your most embarrassing day.
