DailySusan Humor Blog

GETTING UNSTUCK

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You;
In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
Passing through the valley of Baca
They make it a spring. . . .
-- Psalm 84:5-6

Our daughter Neely turned 21 yesterday. We gave her a pristine string of pearls. They suit her. She was one of those wonderfully clean children: she never got dirt on anything.

But one time, she got stuck. She was about 3, and had on brand new saddle shoes. She was soooooo proud of them.

Her dad was building a deck off our kitchen. At the moment, it was edgeless. All around it, three feet down, was a quagmire of deep, stiff mud. The unfinished deck made a great raceway for Neely’s Big Wheel, though.

Except that Neely plunged off and her front wheel plonked vertically into the mud, leaving her upside-down and hopping mad. All that was visible were those brand new saddle shoes waving to and fro.

To free herself, she had to step in that mud. She sank into it, shin-deep. By the time I lifted her to the deck, the saddle shoes were concealed in huge blocks of mud, like the Mafia’s concrete boots.

And she was mad. Boy, did she cry!

But she doesn’t even remember it now. So we can laugh about it.

Getting stuck is no fun. But getting unstuck can be. Eventually.

A friend’s son Rodney was riding his tricycle around in the house during a major remodeling. He was one of those go-getter kids, always into things. Well, his foot slipped off the pedal, and he got his chubby little leg stuck, bigtime.

He tried to wriggle free, but his leg puffed up like a toad. It’s lucky carpenters were on site, for they dismantled the tricycle with him on it while the plumber held him up, and he and his mother both bawled.

Again: horrible then, funny now.

And you know, it’s not only kids getting stuck. Last week, I got myself into a pity party over something that hurt me. I cried for hours. I thought I was hopelessly stuck in a tough situation with no way out. I was soooooo mad, I could only cry.

Then I worried over what people would think when they saw me the next day with my puffy red eyes. I got madder still, and cried myself to sleep.

Well, in the middle of the night, our juvenile delinquent dog Sunny was throwing herself against the laundry room door. I stumbled downstairs to let her out . . . unable to unstick my eyes.

I had cried them shut! Well, almost.

I stepped outside in my ancient flannel nightgown as she ran around the corner. Blinking stupidly, I looked up at the night sky.

It was the most beautiful and brilliant thing I had ever seen.

I rubbed my cried-out eyes with both fists, and gawked upward.

I didn’t hear a Voice, but thought this Thought:

“Don’t stay stuck in your grief. Trust Me. I made these stars. Can’t you trust Me?”

Dang it! That just caused MORE tears.

I slept like a log, and the next day, I turned to a comforting book, “The Stronghold of God” by Francis Frangipane.

What do you suppose it flipped open to?

Psalm 84:6, about the Valley of Baca – “weeping” – that each of us passes through, when we feel hurt and hopelessly stuck. If you trust God, then you have the “highway to heaven” already in your heart – the way out – which is to trust Him.

Your tears can become a spring of refreshment: the lubrication for a new attitude, a new start.

I’m still stuck in the same situation, but now I know it’s not going to last forever. There’s Someone ready to wash the mud off my saddle shoes and dismantle my trike to set me free . . . when it’s time.

Someday, I’ll look back on this, and realize that I looked ridiculous crying about it. ‘Til that day comes, I’ll just have to dry my tears, and enjoy the scenery while I’m waiting to get unstuck, and back in the saddle, riding my trike off into the sunset.

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