I took a class one time
that required me to read a book about traffic. Living in the DC area, I have
plenty of opportunities to observe traffic firsthand, so the book helped
explain some of the things I see regularly.
One of the concepts
that stuck with me is the notion that many car accidents happen when people
fixate on the bad situation they’re heading into. If you see that you’re about
to impact something, and it’s all you focus on, it’s all but certain that it
will happen. You go where your eyes look.
On the flip side, drivers
avoid many accidents by focusing on the way out. If you can’t stop the vehicle
in time, the only way to avoid an impact is to find another way out. Again, you
go where your eyes look.
Reading this book may
have helped me avoid an accident once. I was driving our family somewhere, and
I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have. We came around a downhill
curve, approaching traffic that was slowing to stop at a traffic light. The gap
between us and the car in front of us closed quicker than I anticipated. I
stomped on the brakes, but we weren’t going to stop in time. As crazy as it
sounds, in a flash I remembered that lesson from the book, and my eyes looked
left and right instead of fixating on the looming bumper. I swerved to avoid
the car, spilling over into the next lane. Thankfully the spot in the lane
right next to us was empty and the vehicle in whose way we just jumped stopped
in time.
I’m glad I did my
reading assignments for that class.
Sin is a lot like that.
We all struggle with it in some way. Some sins are recurring, while others you
didn’t even see coming. It could be an addiction, or it could be the result of
a heart that’s bitter or holds grudges. Whatever it is, it seems like all it takes
is the blink of an eye before you’ve messed up again.
Take heart, though.
There’s some good news in the book of 1 Corinthians:
The temptations in your life are no different from
what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation
to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out
so that you can endure. -1 Corinthians
10:13
You haven’t been tempted beyond what you can bear, but there’s another round of temptation coming your way. When it does, instead of fixating on the impact, look for the way out, because there’s going to be one.
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In the Air Force I
spent about four or five weeks preparing to pass a screening course for
survival instructor candidates. As the time drew near for us to move from
preparation to test time, the tone of training got more serious. Up until now
we had been building our bodies and learning skills, but there was plenty of
goofing off, too. The culmination of our time at Indoc was a nine-day course
that was split between rigorous assignments on base and in the barracks for the
first half, followed by a period of being out in the field for the second half.
On the last Friday
before the course began, it was tradition for instructors to run students through
“The Swamp.” The Swamp was a nasty section of Lackland Air Force Base that was
just what it sounds like. Making it through the event was not a prerequisite for
the course, but it was a way for students to begin making the transition from
head knowledge to experience. (It was also fun for the instructors to do.)
A large portion of Air
Force Basic Training was focused on professional appearance, making the uniform
look good, and establishing a proper demeanor for recruits now living in one of
the armed services. While that’s important and has its time and place,
preparing to be a survival instructor carried with it a totally different set
of objectives. The goal in a survival situation is to do just about whatever it
takes to survive and return to friendly territory. A survival instructor goes
through grueling circumstances so they better understand how to convey that
crucial information to the students they’ll later teach. The Swamp helped students further
overcome their reluctance to take actions they might not otherwise take.
Our outing started with
some laps up and down a steep hill while wearing heavy rucksacks. We then made
our way to the edge of the water. As we got near, we could smell the nasty,
stinky, stagnant swamp. It was muddy, had some gross stuff floating in it, and
we could only imagine what lived there.
We made our way to
where the instructor indicated, then set down our rucks. We weren’t dirty
enough yet, so he had us start low crawling through some of the muddiest channels.
Naturally, you try to keep your head out of the mud when doing something like
that, but that’s exactly what our instructor wanted to break us out of doing.
“C’mon, get some mud on your face!”
All of us got herded into an area on the bank of the water, where we started taking turns leading exercises in soaked, muddy uniforms and heavy, waterlogged boots. Pushups, crunches, flutter kicks, eight-count bodybuilders, all sorts of calisthenics made more difficult or tricky by our environment. During flutter kicks, while our soaked boots were up in the air, water would run out of our boots and down our legs. On another occasion I remember that the ground was so soft, while I was in the pushup position my hands sunk down past my elbows into the mud. I couldn’t even bend my elbows to do pushups anymore! We alternately laid on our backs, then on our stomachs, all of us covered in mud except for our necks and heads.
Finally the instructor flat out told us to get every inch
of ourselves covered in mud. Then, for his
idea of a fun photo-op (which I think is fun too, in retrospect), he had us
find some kind of plant to put somewhere on ourselves. By this time, you could hardly even distinguish
between the students.
It’s tough to see, but yours truly is the fifth from the left
After awhile, our
instructor called an end to the experience. We all headed back toward the bus.
Since we couldn’t just walk onto the bus in our current condition, though, we
had to get all the mud off. The stinky, dirty, nasty water that once seemed to
stink so badly now washed us clean. We walked waist-deep into the water, bent
down so the water was up to our neck, and in some cases even went all the way
under. Considering how clean we looked when we came up, you wouldn’t know the
water was so disgusting and swampy. It later took a few trips through the
washing machine for those uniforms to become free of the swamp stink, but they
eventually recovered.
This was a crazy
experience. It was challenging, certainly, but it was very valuable. All the
physical training we’d suffered through for weeks, or even months in some cases,
and now this situation, demonstrated something very interesting to all of us:
if we try pushing ourselves to the limit, we’ll arrive at our self-imposed
mental blocks much sooner than we reach our actual limits. Maybe it’s been
awhile since someone asked you: “Are you giving it everything you’ve got?”
Maybe nobody’s ever asked you the follow-on question: “Yeah, but, are you really giving it your all?”
It’s also valuable to
understand that when you’re confronted by difficult (or even miserable)
circumstances, it’s a lot more tolerable when you have others there with you. If
you’re headed toward something tough, link up with a few others so you can encourage
each other along the way. Alternatively, keep your eyes peeled for someone who’s
alone in the mud right now. It could be more encouraging than you’ll ever know
for them to see someone wading into the mess to come alongside them.
(To see other posts related to the survival instructor indoctrination course, click here.)
The next few days after my father-in-law, Lee, got whisked away to the hospital were a blur. Whatever had gone wrong with his heart was a complicated thing. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma and dropped his body temperature for a few days as a way of “rebooting” him. Since this was right after Christmas, family that had just left turned around and came back. One of Lee and Pam’s daughters flew in from Alaska. People were constantly calling, trying to find out the latest information, even when there was nothing new to report. The adrenaline we all ran on started wearing off, and the exhaustion began setting in.
Lee’s hospital was
about an hour away from his house, where my wife and three young kiddos were
staying. My wife would go up there every day, but an extra two hours of travel
time a day added to the burden. My kids started getting antsy; at the time they
were 5, 4, and 14 months, and Mommy had never been away from them this much
before. In her place, they got a guy that meant well, but just couldn’t compare
to Mommy. Some of the meals I came up with were really just glorified snacks,
and sometimes it was the same thing over and over again. The walls started
feeling like they were closing in on all of us. We needed to find some kind of better solution as we got
closer to the time the doctors were going to try to raise Lee’s body
temperature and revive him.
Lee and Pam knew a
bunch of people in the area near the hospital, and we decided to make the drive
as a family up to that region with the intent to start staying the night up
there somewhere. We packed a bunch of our stuff and left Lee and Pam’s house
not knowing where we’d be spending the next few nights. We made it to the
hospital and went to the waiting room where we saw lots of familiar faces.
During the day all kinds of friends and well-wishers came and went, some of
them even bringing much-appreciated care packages of food and things to help
pass the time. My kids enjoyed the extra time with Mommy, even if it was in a
waiting room. Even with all the extra family and friends helping out, though,
they didn’t have to stay in the same room long before they started getting
antsy again. They needed somewhere to feel settled.
During the day we were
still trying to find a place to stay. One family offered us an available room
in their home, but five of us is a lot to cram into one room (especially when
two of the kids still napped), so we wanted to see if we could find anything
else. Someone had two rooms available for us, but they had a dog that my son
would’ve been allergic to. Late in the day we got word that there was a family
willing to let us stay at their place. They had two rooms for us, no pets, and
the house was less than five minutes from the hospital. The offers weren’t going
to get much better than that and it was getting late, so we grabbed it. By the
time we arrived at the house it was after dark. The house was cheery and still
decorated for Christmas, and when the door opened we met some of the sweetest
people we could have hoped for. Jay and Esther and their daughter Tracey welcomed
us into their home in one of our young family’s hours of greatest need.
Jay and Esther were
great-grandparents, and they had a large family. Their house was so warm and
welcoming, and someone was always popping in because…that’s just the kind of
place it was. They had one of their grandsons staying in their basement at the
time, and he and a visiting friend helped us bring in our luggage, pack ‘n
plays, and anything we brought with us. By the time we got there, it was time
to get the kids to bed. We got our daughters set up in one of the rooms, and we
set up our son on the floor in the room where my wife and I stayed. I think my
wife and I spent a little time visiting with the family before we collapsed
into bed, too. That was our first restful night of sleep since the whole ordeal
with Lee began.
The next day my wife
headed off to the hospital early again, but my kids and I were able to stay in
a place the kids finally felt comfortable and occupied. If memory serves, Jay
and Esther had five kids; as grandparents and great-grandparents, many children
had come to visit this house, and there were all kinds of fun things for my
kids to play with and explore. They also had all kinds of Christmas decorations
that sang or danced after it got squeezed (a favorite for kids). In addition to
all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, they had a foosball table and a pool
table in the basement…something that kept my kids occupied for a very long
time.
Our hosts also figured
out that Daddy was good at getting his kids riled up and roughhousing, but
maybe needed some help in the food preparation department. Oh, man, they were
so great. My kids actually started having balanced meals. Those wonderful
people made it possible for us to put one foot in front of the other on our
march through the trial we faced.
Last story about
staying at their place. During naptime one day, I laid down my youngest in a
pack ‘n play in a room by herself. I laid my son down in his sleeping bag on
the floor in our room, and I set up my oldest daughter to play/color/draw on
the bed in our room. My son fell asleep right away, and I told my daughter I
was going to read on the floor. Once I laid down, though, I figured out pretty
quickly that I wasn’t going to stay awake long, so I let her know I’d probably
take a nap on the floor. My five-year-old daughter got down off our bed with
her little blanket, came and lay down beside me, and all three of us took a nap
in a row on the floor. We were finally in a place where we could rest.
I’ll get you caught up
on Lee in my next post, but this one’s about how much we were able to benefit
from the generosity and hospitality of these wonderful people. That was their
gift, they loved helping people, and it was amazing and much appreciated to be
ministered to in that way.
This whole site is geared toward encouraging you to use your gifts to live a life of higher impact for Christ’s Kingdom. Not everyone is going to be an international gospel singer or someone that proclaims the truth boldly in stadiums across the globe. I don’t know what your gifts are. You might not accomplish anything earth-shattering by being hospitable to someone who needs help, but let me tell you…it can mean the world to the person receiving the help. Whatever your gift is…please…find a way to use it. God gave you that gift for a reason, and if you let Him, He’ll tie you into His master plan.
Sometimes when you’re
stuck in a waiting period, you just need to make the best of it.
In my senior year of
college, I was the Vice President of the Paddle Sports club. This club was for
people that wanted to try their hand at kayaking and whitewater rafting. The
academic year is kind of tricky for paddling because school’s not in session
during a huge chunk of the prime season, so we held pool sessions twice a week
during the entire academic year. During those sessions, it was a great opportunity
for newcomers to learn the basics of kayaking. The problem was…when there were
no newcomers, or when the winter began dragging on, those pool sessions got
kinda dull. If you already knew how to roll a kayak, you had to come up with
other ways to keep it interesting.
In the pool, those of
us that were regulars would try strange stuff: try to roll a capsized kayak
without using a paddle; setting up a kayak on one of the diving boards and
getting in, then sliding off the board into the pool; putting on a life jacket
and trying to swim down to the bottom of the pool’s deep end to retrieve
something from the floor. Out of all of it though, I think the nuttiest stuff
we did involved practicing righting a capsized raft.
When you have a whitewater raft full of people, and you’re shooting through some big water, it can be a dangerous thing if the raft flips and people get scattered. It’s best to have at least a couple of people in each raft that know how to flip it back over. That way if a raft gets flipped in some whitewater, whoever’s closest can flip it back over and get on with the business of bringing everyone back into the boat.
Example of righting a capsized raft
Each raft used in
whitewater rafting normally has a rope tied to at least one of the sides. If
the raft flips upside-down, someone climbs up on top of it. While grabbing the
rope and standing on the opposite edge of the raft, they lean backward while
pulling on the rope, eventually falling into the water and flipping the
capsized raft back over the right way.
Once you know how to do
it, it’s not a difficult thing to do. It’s important to practice though,
because it’s one thing to do it in the pool, but it’s something entirely
different when you’re bobbing through whitewater, trying to climb up on the
raft while wearing a wetsuit, helmet, and life jacket, all while holding a
paddle and trying to count heads.
We did a lot of
raft-flipping in the pool. The basic version gets boring quickly though. You
start trying to make it more interesting. I tried dozens of times to flip the
raft while timing the jump just right so that I landed in the righted raft
without falling in the water. We paired up and had a guy swim under the
capsized raft and hang onto a pontoon, so that when the other guy standing on
top of the raft flipped it over, there was already a guy in the boat. We doubled
the number and had two guys hanging onto pontoons while two other guys flipped
the boat. We even had three guys on top of a capsized raft…as two guys flipped
it, the third guy tried to get catapulted into the water (although he
miscalculated and got flipped the wrong direction). It was goofy stuff that was
just fun, didn’t hurt (much), and served no practical purpose other than
helping to pass the time.
What am I getting at? Sometimes
you’re going to be stuck waiting for awhile. Whether it’s a low-level job where
you have to put your time in, maybe a military assignment that’s a terrible but
necessary rung on the ladder, or maybe some season of life where you have to
put your primary plans on hold for a bit, you’ll probably find that God put you
in (or you got yourself into) a situation where the things you want to do are
going to have to take a back seat for awhile. In Paddle Sports, we had the
luxury of the season being predictable; we knew we wouldn’t do much outdoor
paddling from November to February, but things were going to pick up with the
spring thaw. A predictable season is the reality for some, but for others, they
don’t know how long they’ll be waiting.
If you find yourself in
the middle of your own version of the “winter months,” hang in there. Surround
yourself with people that will keep your spirits up and keep spurring you on. There’s
usually a lot you can do or learn even in those trying times. Spring’s coming,
but for now, do your best to make the most of the time you’ve got.
