Short term memorizing has never been all that difficult for me. I love words, I love the taste of them in my mouth and I find myself constantly filling my mouth with as many words as I can, and then spewing them out wantonly as fast as I can and at whatever I can. So I don't really understand why the kid next to me can't remember the little two-line verse he's supposed to be memorizing. Until, that is, I realize that the kid can barely read the verse, and it would take a miracle for him to understand what the verse is actually driving at, which in this case is why we should love God. Now, disregarding the obvious parellel between my experience and the kids ignorance and God and myself, I began to think about two things. 1) how quick I am to skim the knowledge offered me and discard it. and 2) my horrendous propensity to take the love of God and my ability to love Him for granted.
Most of you know that I was involved in a rather serious accident this past summer, in a matter of seconds I went from the inside of a vehicle to being the next incarnation of Superman. I had never realized how fast everything can change. How fast a split second is. And the fragile hold I have on life and my own well being. But for me, the hardest thing about the accident wasn't the accident, or the hospital, or the pain, or even the fear which assaulted me every time I drove past the accident site, the hardest thing was how normal the next day was. Your not supposed to walk away after being thrown 20 ft in the air. Your supposed to end up with your back broken and your hands mangled beyond recognition. Not wearing your seatbelt isn't supposed to save you from a closed casket funeral. Your not supposed to be blessed with almost no memory of the accident itself. But that's the way my accident worked out. Now I was really sore and stiffer than I'd ever been, but that didn't stop me from walking out of the hospital the next day and driving back to camp. After the initial hugs and queries over my well-being life settled back into its normal routine for everyone else. But it was hard for me to go back to the normal routine - my world had just been exploded around me. Suddenly it wasn't quite so important that one counselor bugged me to death, it didn't matter that it was hotter than I liked, or even that I wasn't able to counsel that week despite really looking forward to it. For the first time in my life I realized my vulnerability, and then God proceeded to hammer it home every single time I drove by the spot where we flipped. And then the summer ended and I flew back to Wisconsin. And the Midwest is a lot different from California - there's no sand, or heat. No scorpions to catch and feed to your pet (also a scorpion), no rattlers to kill with a pair of scissors, there's not a hundred kids running around screaming bloody murder from sunup to sundown (as you love every moment). And so I forgot - until a kid next to me couldn't memorize his verse.