Rusty as Riding a Bike

At least sitting down to write again, albeit it's been a bit, is less rusty than the last time I tried to remember how to ride a bike.

Now, one may think that hopping back onto a bike is a simple task. Most of us have known it since childhood. Yes. All the scraped knees, the homemade jumps, trying to pedal as fast as you can to impress your crush (I'm hoping that wasn't just a me thing).

Yet, it was more complicated than that.

I am the type of person that wants to know how to do something perfectly before I attempt it (how is that even possible?!). I don't want people to see my weaknesses, my flaws. Chalk it up to feeling like I needed to always be perfect growing up so that there wasn't cause for disappointment or punishment (work in progress here people still as an adult).

Anywho, moving away from the rabbit hole that is trauma... years and years and years ago, I bought myself a beach cruiser back when I had moved back in with my mom. We lived less than a mile from the beach and riding a beach cruiser was the "cool" thing to do.

So, I buy the bike, get back home, and take it for a spin.

Mind you, I hadn't been on a bike in quite awhile.

I was also in my mid-twenties so I assumed I knew everything and was invincible.

Ha!

That's a laugh.

What the heck did I actually know?!

My mom lived on the top of a hill so I was at least smart enough to not conquer going down the hill as my first attempt.

Instead, I start out at a leisurely, wobbly, anxiety filled pace heading down the road.

I'm cruising.

Blonde hair flowing in the wind.

Cocky smile on my face.

I've got this.

Bike, I own you!

And then the need to stop.

I'm going too fast.

Here comes a car.

I'm squeezing the handlebars.

Why are the brakes not working?!

Where are the brakes?!

They are always on the handlebars.

Oh wait.

The pedals are the brakes...it's a beach cruiser.

Of course!

Too late.

Nichol and bike, meet bush and fence.

Oh yah. A nice prickly, thorny bush and a lovely white fence right behind it.

I made friends with them.

What was I thinking, thinking that I knew everything before I checked it all over?

Here I am embarrassed, face red from humiliation and love scratches over my arms and face from the bush and a sore nose from crunching into the fence.

I didn't give myself grace. I didn't laugh like I would today if it happened. I thought it was the end of the world because I couldn't remember that a cruiser had pedals for brakes. Now, I had to explain myself to anyone that asked why I looked like I had been through the ringer and let people laugh at me. That was terrifying.

I don't think I rode the bike again for awhile. It made a great yard decoration.

Why do I share this story?

That's a great question.

I just sat down at my laptop to write and this is what came out.

But I think in all of this, what can be learned is that, we all mess up.

Not one of us is perfect.

Not one of us knows everything that there is to know.

Not one of us is any better than someone else that has messed up before.

However, there is one that is perfect, that knows the rising of the sun and every hair on our heads, and has been tempted as we have and conquered without sin.

We may not be able to give ourselves grace. We may be hard-pressed to give grace to others. We may not feel deserving of receiving the Ultimate Grace.

But the good news is, whether we meet face to bush and fence, or we slip into and out of addiction, we fight battles of anger and worthlessness, or we let shame win on the hard days, the One who knows us all, calls us His own.

He has grace and mercy unending for even those that consider themselves too far gone to be redeemable.

Hear those words and know, there is Hope.

2 Corinthians 5:21- "21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."