ticks

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When You Fall, Get Back Up

There is a saying that when you fall off a bike you should get right back on it again. 

The saying doesn’t specifically refer to riding a bike, rather it’s a reference to anything you fail at. You should get right back at it and do it again.

We’ve all followed that rule with many things in life, including riding our bikes. 

When that first date didn’t go so well, you didn’t stop dating; you got right back at it. When you didn’t make that team, you didn’t stop playing the game. 

When you failed a test you didn’t quit school, and when you stubbed your big toe, you didn’t stop going barefoot, and resort to wearing steel-toed boots to bed.

No, you got right back at what you were doing. That’s what we’re supposed to do. 

There are some things, however, that are harder to get right back to.

I remember one time as a kid that I got sick after eating corn on the cob. The corn had nothing to do with me being sick, but as I was losing my lunch over the toilet bowl, the sight of …. you get the idea and the picture. 

I couldn’t look at corn for a long time. After that incident I didn’t eat it at all for a few years. 

But slowly, my love of corn returned and I did eventually get back on the bike and start eating it again. 

In fact, when I was in high school at a youth event, in a challenge with another guy, I ate something like 18 cobs of corn! … No, I was not sick after that, but I did feel like I was waddling around for a few hours.

I say all that because, though we are supposed to get right back up when we fail or have a bad experience, it’s just difficult to do sometimes.

That’s what I’m experiencing these days. I haven’t been riding on a trail all week. There have been some days when the weather hasn’t been good, but many days when it’s been a perfect day for a ride. 

Instead, every day I’ve chosen to ride on the road.

The reason? The last time I rode my trail, I stopped to build a new section. When I got back to the cottage, I found another tick. (You can read about the first tick I brought home here.)

I’m two for two. Both times I’ve worked on a new section of trail, I’ve brought home a tick. … I hope it’s only been two! 

This one I found on the bath mat just outside the shower. I take it that the tick didn’t feel like having a shower with me.

I haven’t hit the trails since; these two ticks are keeping me out of the woods. I now have a partial trail that leads to nowhere. 

Fear of what could happen – and Lily not being too excited about the friends I’ve invited in – have stopped me so far. 

I may not finish that trail but I just have to get back to mountain biking. 

Here’s the thing: Sometimes it can be something very small – even as small as a tick – that stops you from going deeper with God. What does God want next for you? What failure, fear, or distraction is keeping you from moving forward with Him? Get back on your bike and ride. Go deeper with God. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has ever stopped you in your tracks? Leave your comments below.

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A Tick On The Loose

A clock goes tick-tick, in movies a bomb will tick down to detonation, and at times I have been ticked at something or someone. 

But the other day, I came face to face with a plain old tick – that’s right, that little critter that has become feared by even the strongest of men. 

Lily spotted it first and called me over. We both looked at it and determined that, yes, it was a tick. 

It was crawling on the wall behind our stove. How it got there we have no idea. But it was a little unsettling … especially when Lily, who really wanted to kill it fast, lost it behind the stove. 

She went to scoop it up in a paper towel but somehow the slow moving tick evaded her attack. 

These things don’t travel very fast. After we spotted it, and stood looking at it for a few minutes, I took a few pictures of it. We looked it up on the internet and, in all that time, it had not moved more than a few inches, despite the fact that it never stopped crawling. 

When we lost it, we had to move the stove out and look to see if any of the tiny little crumbs that had collected there over the past year of so were moving. 

Lily thoroughly mopped the area and hoped we got it. 

“Hoped?!”, I said. “You mean we don’t even know if we got the little tick or not?” 

He could be crawling around the cottage looking for someone to snack on. 

How it got in we have no idea.

We have three main theories: I could have brought it in on my biking clothes. A couple of days before I had been walking through the woods, scouting out where to make a new trail to bike on. 

I could have brought it in on my clothes when I washed the cottage siding. I was rubbing against a big tall cedar hedge for about a half hour. 

The other option is that it got in when Lily was cleaning the windows.

We don’t really know if any of these theories are right, but what we do know is that every little speck that we see in the cottage we have to stare at. 

We get up close and personal with every crumb to check it out to see whether it is moving or not. 

They say that finding a needle in a hay stack is difficult; well we have that beat – we don’t even know if there is anything in the hay stack after all!

Why couldn’t Lily have just been more careful in squishing that tick? Now we have these bad dreams that a tick is going to crawl on us at night and give us lime disease. 

One major inconvenience for me is that apparently none of my biking clothes can enter the cottage any more. They have to stay outside on the deck. 

Supposedly a tick can live for 2-3 days indoors before it dies. We will just have to wait it out and check ourselves to see if it has found a home.

Here’s the thing: Some people are more afraid of being bitten by a tick than of what they will face at the end of their lives. A tick bite might affect the rest of your life on earth, but not being concerned or taking precautions about your eternity can be eternally devastating. It’s best to be proactive with God, and ensure you have a relationship with Him now.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has a potential life-altering experience changed your outlook on life? Leave your comments below.

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Why We All Think We Are Lucky

 

I thought just young people believed they were invincible. It turns out that most of us think nothing bad is going to happen to us.

tick-bites

In the last month I have heard of three people getting ticks. Two of them I see at least on a weekly basis. And it’s a little serious because about 20% of the ticks in this region of Ontario carry Lime disease.

The tick problem in our parts concerns me because I mountain bike in wooded areas … which is prime territory for the minute little creatures. I just recently found out that a guy, who bikes in the same place I bike, picked up a tick on the weekend.

Knowing this bothers me. But, you know what? I’m not going to stop biking in the area.

Some precautions are to wear long-sleeved shirts, and long pants tucked into your socks. You should also splash on a good dose of repellent with Deet in it.

That’s all fine and dandy but I’m not biking in attire that is fit for a Spruce Meadows equestrian event. Nor am I crazy about using mosquito repellent as cologne for the next several months.

I have a good mind to take my chances when I go biking. And that’s the thing – if there really is a 20% chance of getting a tick with Lime disease, that means I have an 80% chance of not getting one.

That causes one to start thinking, “How lucky do I feel?” It’s the same question Clint Eastwood asked the bad guy in one of his movies. He pointed his gun at the robber and said “You’re thinking, ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ … well you have to ask yourself, ‘Do I feel lucky?’”

We all take risks all the time, and not just with ticks, but with other things, too. In an article I read on heart attack recovery, it said up to 80% of heart attack survivors return to previous unhealthy lifestyle patterns.

We think that even though we’re not doing all that we should, we’ll still be okay.

It’s supposed to be those who are 16 – 28 that think they’re untouchable. But I wonder if they are just coming by these traits naturally by watching older generations living like the cat down the street with nine lives.

I think this mentality has more to do with habit and less to do with feeling lucky. I think we have a hard time giving up what we like. We don’t like giving up our comfort foods, our sedentary lifestyle, our fashion, or even what something feels like when we have it on (repellent or sunscreen).

So every day we wake up and, without consciously thinking it, we act like we feel lucky.

Here’s the thing: We can live our whole life thinking that either there is no God or that in the end God will befriend us. If you live that way you have to ask yourself, “Do I feel lucky?”, because if you’re wrong, the consequences are eternal.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you take little risks every day without thinking about the consequences? I’d really like to hear from you; you can leave your comment below.