5 Spoonfuls Of Courage Sýnishorn

Courage to Look at Ourselves Objectively 

The nurses wheeled a dirty cowboy into the trauma room. As I walked in, the head nurse looked at me and smirked. “He was impaled in the leg by a bull’s horn.”

I examined the cowboy from head to toe. Scars covered his body.  “How’d you get that scar on your face?” 

“That bull’s name was ‘Looking for Trouble'.” The cowboy laughed.

I palpated his abdomen, covered by a large midline scar. Before I could ask, he interrupted. “Spent a month in the ICU with that one. Got gored by another bull. He trampled all over me. The docs took out my spleen, patched up my liver and did some fancy operation on my pancreas.” He grinned. “But I hung on for eight seconds. Came in third. All the dang prize money went to doctor bills.”

I looked down at his leg. A large gash exposed his knee joint. The tendons and muscles were severed. I could see the blood vessels exposed in the depths of the wound. Just another millimeter deeper and the bull could have claimed the victory.

I asked,  “Have you noticed a pattern here?” 

After an uncomfortable pause, he smiled back at me. “Doc, I need to learn to ride a little better.” 

Our trials are occasions to learn, grow, and to show God’s adequacy. Like Rowdy, we often lack insight into the real source of our problems. We fail to learn from our mistakes. 

We need to allow others to examine our lives. If you repeat the same life choices, don’t expect something different to happen. Find a friend who will tell you the truth in love. Listen and learn. If we don’t learn from our experiences, we’re bound to repeat them. God’s children don’t fail tests. Instead, God makes them repeat it over and over and over. Until finally, the test is passed.