As a young mom, I had no idea the difference between boys and girls. Although both of our kids were sweet, generous, loving and kind, differences in the two started showing up early on. Our daughter was gentle, inquisitive, curious, well spoken, and somewhat cautious. Our son on the other hand, was silly, funny, crazy, fearless, and went ‘full throttle’.
When he was only four years old, he decided one day to learn to ride a bike. It was a little bike, but he could barely reach the peddles, much less the ground. Neverthless, in one afternoon, he had conquered the bike. After feeling comfortable with his newly acquired skills, I headed in the house to get some work done. After about 5 minutes, he came running in the house, and asked me to come watch something. He led me by my hand, sat me down on the back porch, and disappeared around the corner. The next thing I knew, here came my son around the corner, standing on the bike seat with one leg, the other leg waving in the air behind him. Once he turned the corner, he decided to also take is hands off of the handlebars, saying…. (you guessed it)… “Look mom, No hands!” Although this was an impressive ‘trick’, this little 4 year old mind didn’t calculate the fact that the only thing he had touching the bike was his foot on the seat, and he was in the back yard on a short sidewalk, with no way to stop. I ran toward him, but I could not reach him before he slammed face first into the brick porch. After making sure there were not broken bones, and that everything moved properly, we both felt lucky all he did was scape his nose. After a good laugh we applied the biggest band-aid we could find… because the bigger the band-aid, the faster you heal, right?
After that epic crash, both my son and I were wiser about the necessity of having your bike brakes within reach. Wisdom comes in many forms and at different times in our lives. Sometimes gaining that ‘wisdom’ can be painful.
“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” James 3:17
Wisdom is not easy to gain, but one of the most sought after attributes. With wisdom comes so many other attributes that we all would like to have. Amazingly, as we learn and get wiser all during our life span, we need to look for those opportunities that are being provided to us throughout our lives, and truly learn from them. Whether it is knowing when to keep our feet on the peddles so we can stop without crashing, or maybe just knowing what ‘danger’ looks like, so we can get back on our metaphorical bike and learn to do more tricks.
