Foundations Of Loving God And Family Should Always Be Strong

Don’t just deal with adversity — use it to propel yourself forward.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27

When I was in junior high I decided to try out for our track team. I made the running cut quite easily. But our coach wanted us to do more than just run. If you were a runner he wanted you to become proficient in a field event. And vice-versa.

It was actually quite funny seeing all the big linemen who threw the shot put try to do the 400 meter hurdles. And on the flip side to see the scrawny long distance runners try to spin around with a discus. (Which was also a bit dangerous too.)

For some reason I’ve never quite figured out, I decided to go out for pole vault. I was pretty much horrible at it, but there were only two of us at the time so my coach encouraged me to keep with it.

So I practiced and I practiced and I practiced. I finally got to where I could jump the track meet minimum of 8 feet. (I was very excited about that.) Doing that encouraged me to keep trying harder and harder.

During Spring break we couldn’t go down to the field to practice pole vault so I had an idea pop into my head. I could set up a pole vault pit in my backyard.

We had an old pile of bricks out back so I spent the better part of a morning stacking them up nice and neat into two columns.

I screwed the head off an old shop broom to use the broomstick as the bar spanning across the brick columns.

I grabbed three air mattresses and put them under the brick/broomstick creation and then for the final act of brilliance, I took down my old swing set and used the pole for my pole vault stick.

I started low. Four feet or so. (Hey carrying those bricks was hard work.) I ran across my back yard, stuck my swing set pole in the ground and flew over the broomstick spanning the two columns of bricks and landed like a feather on the air mattresses. So then I went to 5 feet. Then f5 and a half. Then, I leaned the swing set pole up against the brick column and slowly added enough bricks to make the columns almost the same height.

“Now this will be something I can brag about,” I thought to myself.

So, I breathed in and out really fast three times and started to run as fast as I could across my backyard. I stuck my pole in the ground and lifted myself up. I got my feet over, then my back and finally my arms and I landed on the air mattresses safe and sound.

“Yes!” I cried out in excitement! “I did it!”

About that time, my swing set pole fell to the side. It hit my dangerously teetering column of bricks. And in slow motion, the whole column came tumbling down. Right on my face. That one took 38 stitches to my chin and cheek. Ever since I was 16, part of my beard has been grey from the scar across my chin.