Skateboard
Once upon a time when I was a kid, I had a dream. Specifically, I wanted to be good at riding a skateboard. To be clear, I never lived in a town that had decent streets or sidewalks, and I have about enough natural athletic ability to fill a small thimble. But I had a skateboard and I had a dream, and man, did I try.
My greatest accomplishment on that skateboard was teaching our dog to pull me down the sidewalk. And that was about it. Fast forward a few decades, and not long ago through a unique series of events, I found myself standing with one foot on the smooth concrete of a brand new skate park and the other foot on my very old skateboard.
The dream came roaring back to life and for a few glorious minutes, I lived it. I was a not-very-young man with a very old skateboard cruising the ramps of that skate park like we were made for each other. It was a spectacular moment. At one point I literally yelled out with joy! But let's not kid ourselves. We all know how this is going to end, and pretty soon, it did.
Very shortly after my joyful shout, gravity showed up and my moment of glory came to a crashing, painful, halt. As I lay there, flat on my back in the middle of the skate park, I pondered the cold hard reality of it all. Mostly I was just hoping that I was going to be able to find all of my skateboard, at least part of my dignity, and manage to get back to my car. But in addition to that, I did ponder, and a few things occurred to me.
It occurred to me why everyone else at the skatepark that day was well under the age of 18. I get that now. It occurred to me that the smoothest concrete on Earth is still hard as a rock when you land on it. I had injuries for quite a while that reminded me about that. And most painfully of all, it occurred to me that some things in life are not for everybody. And that one still hurts.
Not only can some people defy gravity on a skateboard while the rest of us can't, that fact is true in life in many other ways as well. Some people get to have their dream job. Some people get to live on the beach. Some people get to be healthy and a hundred and five. But the rest of us don't.
The rest of us have jobs that pay the bills, hopefully. The rest of us live wherever we can afford to. The rest of us get sick, and sometimes we don't get well. The rest of us end up in a heap in the middle of a skate park, have to lay there for 10 minutes before we can even move, and then a child delivers our skateboard to us and we hobble back to our car while our crushed dreams stay lying on the concrete.
OK, that last part may not be everybody, but you get the point.
The point is that some things in life are not for everybody. And from here, that feels like really bad news.
So now let's talk about the good news.
The good news is that just like some things in life are not for everybody, other things are. Don't take my word for it though. Let's not kid ourselves, I might still have a bit of a concussion. Take it instead from the mouth of an angel.
A long time ago, a baby was born into the world. His parents were so poor that the baby was born in a barn. But even laying there in a pile of straw, this was no ordinary kid. After he was born, this terrifying warrior angel showed up to some of the most beat-down and outcast people in town with an announcement. He said, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”
The truth is that I'm never going to catch big air on a halfpipe. Or at least I'm not going to live to tell about it if I do. But I can live with that because I have something so very much greater. I love the fact that Jesus was born in a barn and that his first invited guests were the low-lifes of the town. I believe that God set that up on purpose so that for all time we could read that story in the Book of Luke, Chapter 2 in the Bible and know that Jesus is not like a dream job or a house on the beach. Jesus is for everybody. And that includes you.
