Thinking Back Thursday

When my daughter was 7, she played on a softball team.   One particular night, she didn’t want to go play, but I made her go anyway.   About the second inning, one of the coaches motioned me over to the dugout.   In my mind, Les was probably saying she didn’t feel well because she didn’t want to play.  When I got there, she was crying, and had one had over her eye.  I knelt down to talk to her, and she moved her hand and looked at me.   I was really glad I was already on my knees, because they got a little weak.   She had a knot under her eye the size of a grape, and her eye was already turning black.    Another little girl was swinging her helmet and smashed Les in the face.   Later, at Wal*Mart (still in her uniform) Les got all kinds of attention from everyone who saw her.

There is a hole in the bedroom door at my parent’s house that was once my room.   I was in college, and I do not remember why I was having a meltdown…but I was.   I slammed the door.   Hard.   So hard that the door somehow managed to go partially to the other side of the door frame…and stick.   I was trapped.   Six-year-old Les was going to help me get out and she took a hammer to the door, which I believe was my suggestion (only my idea and hers were quite different…and who knows what I was thinking?).   That was years ago.  I said I was going to get that fixed.  The hole is still there.   I can’t remember how I got the door back in place…but Les told me just today that I got what I deserved.   Haha!  I agree.

I think my temper is better than it used to be.   I hope it is, anyway.   I have not, after all, slammed any more doors….well, not hard enough to shove them through to the other side, anyway.   I don’t yell near as much, either.   Yeah, I was probably as pleasant as I sound.  I’m really glad God is patient with me…and my family, too.

A few of the (really big) things I said I’d never do or put up with when I was in high school, I managed to accomplish within the first four years of being out of high school.   Life is a really unforgiving teacher at times.  

Looking back over the years of foolishness, I realize that, indeed, God had His hand on me and showed me grace while still in my teens:

I climbed way up high on a rail road bridge…over the water and I can’t swim…with some friends one night.

I married a man I barely knew…and paid dearly for that choice.

A girlfriend and I got into a boat with a young, handsome  guy and two older men, at the young guy’s persuasion.   They took us to the middle of the river, where the young guy promptly jumped out and swam away.   The two men did not have good intentions.  I want to tell you that had I been alone with them (and I was stupid enough to have fallen for that “how about a boat ride “ trick, even by myself) I am not sure what would have happened!   Thankfully, my girlfriend was a smooth talker, and convinced the old men to take us back and we would be happy to meet up with them later…but that we had something really important to take care of first.    Both my girlfriend and I had praying mothers.

I think I won’t even tell some of the other completely stupid and utterly foolish things I did.   You’d worry about my sanity…as it is, I’ve told precious few people some of the things I got myself into.   I suppose it is better that way, don’t you?