When You Trip and Fall

I knew there was a reason that I stayed away from museums… and china shops. A recent Reuters report tells about a visitor to a museum in Cambridge, England who tripped over his own loose shoelace and tumbled down a flight of stairs. The good news was that he was unhurt. The bad news is that he tumbled into a display case housing a collection of vases from the Qing dynasty of China, shattering every vase in the display!

Here was this guy who goes out for an afternoon to the local museum to expand his horizons. One minute he was taking in some culture; the next minute he is tumbling head over heels, smashing the culture to smithereens! Museum director Duncan Robinson was actually quite stoic, “It was a most unfortunate and regrettable accident but we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed.” At least that is what he said.

We’ve all been there more often than we will admit, haevn't we? One minute we are browsing around through life without a care in the world; the next minute we are tumbling head over heels smashing through something valuable and breakable. We say or do exactly the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time… leaving a pile of shattered feelings behind in our wake. we know what the guy felt like sitting at the bottom of the stairs with the shattered pottery pieces all around him. Aren’t you grateful that God is eternally forgiving and gracious when we trip and fall? Shouldn’t we seek to be a little more forgiving and gracious to one another?