Falling Down

'Falling Down the Stairs' ought to be the title of this blog post, but that sounded too comical, especially since the reality was quite the opposite.

You see, I did fall down the stairs a few days ago. I had been busy upstairs carrying out the mundane task of collecting dirty laundry from all the respective rooms, and when my arms were too full to carry anymore and I could no longer see anything before my eyes but piles of clothes, I proceeded as I always do, taking careful steps down the stairs.

My youngest who had been busily working on 'lessons' in the front room had placed her work book on the half-way step, obviously so happy with her work that she had put it there to surprise me. Well, it did surprise me, negatively I'm sad to say. My foot slipped on that middle step and I landed with a painful thud against my back on the bottom step.

My children gathered around me in a flash, fussing and questioning, and to be quite honest I wanted to be left alone. What transpired fascinates me though, as although the pain in my back was insufferable, the tears that flowed from my eyes seemed to come from a much deeper well than that initial pain. I cried and cried, but minutes later the tears seemed to be of a different kind.

It took but one step amidst common-place routine to shake me up. And I do even now, some four days later feel decidedly jangled inside, physically more so than spiritually, but it has certainly given me much food for thought. It occured to me how comfortable we all try to make things, and how my sudden surge of distress bought on by the jolt of the fall had aroused all manner of profound thoughts that had been on the 'back burner' so to speak, and thrust them to the forefront of my mind, and how at the same time peripheral things vanished as they were unimportant.

With a literal jolt the needful in my heart had awoken, 'Only one thing is needed' Jesus told Martha, and when it comes down to it the same holds true for us as it did for Mary. He is not just to be first in my life, but the Only thing, my life flows from Him, He gives me life.

All my eyes could see as I proceeded down the stairs were my daily tasks, smothered almost literally in monotony, treading through the 'rut' of normal life, looking no further than the boring laundry that was in my line of sight, I couldn't see where I was going, I was looking at the wrong thing. And where am I going? Well, I'm supposed to be following my Saviour, but how can I follow Him if I let too much 'junk' get between us. Merciful Father that He is, as Andrew Peterson sings 'Falling down ain't graceful, but I thank the Lord that falling is full of grace'. And so it is, for He causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

It just so happened that the following day one of the books I'm reading spoke in a small way on this idea of being woken up as it were by 'falling down'. The book is called 'The Highlander's Last Song' by George MacDonald, and in this chapter Christina (an unbeliever who has up until this chapter had many conversations with another character called Ian about his faith in God, but she has been all but 'dead' to all that he has said) is now suddenly trapped in a flash flood, but saved from drowning by Ian.

"Suddenly in danger, self came less to the front with her than usual. For the first time in her life she was face-to-face with reality. Until this very moment her life had been an affair of unrealities. Solid reality itself is not enough to teach some of nature's reality; they must hurt themselves against its solidness before they realize its solidity, its reality. Looking at a soft river floating away in the moonlight is hardly reality to a dreaming soul. But the river was real! Christina was shivering in its grasp of her body, its omnipresence to her skin; its cold made her gasp and choke; the push and tug of it threatened to sweep her away like a log.

When we are most aware of fact-ness, we are most aware of our need for God, and most able to trust Him. The recognition of inexorable reality in any shape, or kind, or ways tends to rouse the soul to the yet more real, to its relations with higher and deeper existence. It is not the hysterical alone for whom the great dash of cold water is good. All who dream life instead of living it require some similar shock. Every disappointment, every sorrow, every tragedy of life can work the same way - can drive one trifle nearer to the truth of being. Hence this sharp contact with nature tended to make Christina less selfish. It made her forget herself so far as to care for her helper as well as her self."