The Sweetest Lemonade I've Ever Had!

We've all had times when we wanted to just disappear into thin air...times when something happened to embarrass us. It's times like those when we would like nothing more than to be able to wave a magic wand and turn back time 5 seconds!

I’m not sure that I can adequately describe my feelings at the time it happened - my most embarrassing moment that is.  I don't believe that there are even words in our English language that I could use to clearly paint the picture for you. Suffice it to say that it was total, complete embarrassment, probably my most embarrassing moment ever  (and let me assure you that I have had some pretty embarrassing moments in my lifetime.)

I was at my usual Sunday morning place - church services.  The auditorium was quite full; we had a lot of visitors that morning.  The Bible classes has just concluded and the young folks along with their teachers were coming into the auditorium from their classes. We have about a 15 minute break during this time.  It gives everyone time to get up and stretch a minute, go to the restroom, get a drink of water, etc.  I try to use some of this time to meet any visitors that we might have so I was up walking around. The auditorium of our church building has 2 sets of pews, one on the left and one on the right, with an aisle up the center of the bldg. leading to the front of the auditorium.

I had made my way around and spoken with several of our visitors and I proceeded to walk up the center aisle toward the bench that Tim and I usually sit on. Tim was talking with someone about half way up the aisle so I just stopped and stood behind him while he carried on his conversation.

The day was great. As I said, we had a lot of visitors which was such an encouragement to us. You see, we are a relatively new group of the Lord's church.  We've been in our current church building for a couple of years after meeting at places that we rented for about 2 years.  The auditorium was bustling from folks conversing with one another.  It was about 5 minutes before time for our worship service to begin.

As I stood there in the center aisle behind Tim waiting for him to finish speaking with some folks, I felt the weight of my left foot begin to shift a bit and press outwardly. When that happened, the weight on the left side of my body was no longer resting evenly on my high heeled shoe. Uh oh! "Houston, we have a problem!" When the left side of my body weight was no longer resting evenly on my left high heeled shoe, my left foot became off-balance and my left ankle pretty much gave way on me.  Actually, not pretty much...it did! Now let me stop to remind us all how very, very important our ankles are in the scheme of things like holding up our body weight. It's a small member of our body but trust me, it plays a very important role in our well being! If our ankle isn't supporting our leg, guess what? We're not being supported! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out! On with my humiliation... When my left ankle gave way, my left leg gave way, and when my left leg gave way, I went down!!!!!!  Yes, you read right! I went down!  I would love to tell you that it was a graceful fall, one that movies are made of but I dare say that it was probably the kind of fall that folks send in to those shows that highlight people looking stupid!

At any rate, I am confident that it wasn't pretty.  And it wasn't one of those things that, as a participant, you see happening in slow motion. At least I didn't.  It was fast!  Before I knew it, I was sitting in that middle aisle on my backside! (Yes, ladies...at this moment, it is appropriate to feel horrified for me!) There literally was a gasp...an "ohhhhhh" coming from those who saw it happen. Tim turned around, saw me on the floor and was shocked when he realized that I had fallen. (His back had been turned to me the entire time so he didn't actually see what happened.) He helped me back to a standing position, the position I prefer to be in most of the time. With many eyes on me and feeling my face get redder and redder, I waved to the crowd in the auditorium and let them know that I was OK.  "I'm fine...really I'm fine.", I said, and I was ...physically. Note to self - Be extremely thankful for deciding to wear an extra full, rather long dress that morning.

Tim held onto my arm and escorted me to the bench. I'm sure that my face had in it's coloring every shade of red that has been and that will ever be known to mankind.
Embarrassed?  Oh my! That word isn't strong enough.  It just doesn't do justice to how I felt as I sat down.

After services were over, several people showed their sincere concern for me and my physical well being as well as my mental trauma. One of the sweetest, most caring people I have ever been blessed to be associated with came up to me immediately after church and asked,  "Are you okay?" as she gave me a warm hug. I knew she felt my embarrassment. There were several who asked if I was okay. Some thought I had twisted my ankle or that the heel of my shoe had gotten caught in the fibers of the carpet. Two people in particular said when speaking to me about the fall..."Well that’s nothing to be embarrassed about! Everyone falls! " Those statements happened to come from men. I think probably that falling for men isn’t nearly as traumatic as it is for women. It's normal for men, teen boys, little boys and even baby boys to spend a lot of time developing an up close and personal relationship with the ground. Ladies...not so much. Most folks were just puzzled that one second I was standing and the next second I was on the floor.  I was kind of puzzled too!

I survived that episode that morning and went home for the afternoon but every time "the fall" would pop back into my mind, the same sick, embarrassing feeling would come to the surface all over again. You know that feeling where your heart just sinks and you feel like you have Sumo wrestlers going at it in your stomach?  Yep...that was how I felt.

On Sunday evening we returned to Kelly Spring Rd. for the evening worship service as usual. I, of course, was hoping that I wouldn't have to relive what had happened and that no one would bring it up anymore.  As I was standing in the center aisle once again talking with some people before church began a kind man, who had visited with us several times asked me in a rather loud voice, "Are you okay from your fall this morning?"  I kind of chuckled a bit and said, "I’m fine, really I am.  But thank you for asking." He went on to say as he continued in his rather loud voice, "Well that’s good as long as your okay. That’s all that matters."

Those last two sentences that he said all of the sudden made a lot of sense to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized. Yes, that really is all that matters...that I wasn't hurt...that I was okay.

Now, don't misunderstand. I still was embarrassed, terribly embarrassed!  I can say that I don't believe I have ever had a more embarrassing moment in all my years of life on this earth, but I was okay. That was the important thing. That visitor along with many members of my Christian family helped bring that to the forefront of my thinking.

I received a big old bushel basket full of lemons that day and I didn't even ask for it.  I also received some of the sweetest lemonade that I’ve ever had and I didn’t even have to make it. My sweet family in Christ made it for me and handed it to me on a silver platter.  