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William Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Executive Director of New Hope, Crystal Cathedral
New Hope CE, September 2004

Introduction

I can't believe that you came to this class" "When to Listen, When to Talk, and When to Laugh."  I mean really! 

You've heard me speak before.  Some of you many times.  You really believe that I can be funny?  You might think I'm wise or caring or spiritual, but funny?  Last month no one laughed at my dead cat joke.  No one.  You just sat there with blank faces.  A couple of people cried and ran home to make sure their cats were okay.  And I understand because I have a cat that I love too.

Did you really believe the flyer for this class was true?  I know you.  I know what you're thinking:

"'Advance praise from anonymous sources. The funniest New Hope class in 37 years.'  C'mon.  Get real.  Who are these 'anonymous sources.'  And 37 years.  Dr. Bill isn't even 37 years old is he?"

Well you're wrong.  I am older than 37.  But I guess you're right that I'm not especially funny.  At least that's what my Spiritual Director says.  Every month I meet with Ray Ortlund for Spiritual Direction.  Here's what he said to me recently:

"You need to belly laugh Bill!  To just be set free to enjoy God and what he's doing in your life.  You're serious and intense for God.  That's how God's made you; it's your gift.  And yet any strength overplayed becomes a weakness.  God wants you to rejoice!  He wants you to be truly happy in him!"

"Laughter is holy.  It pleases God.  You're so serious.  You need to lighten up and laugh more.  Remember what John Piper teaches, 'God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.'"

Belly laugh?  Can you believe that?  You know it's bad when your Spiritual Director tells you that you're too serious!

Anyway, I'm glad you're here.  We'll see if I can teach you anything about laughter or not.  But maybe I can at least show you a few things about listening and talking.

Let's pray.  Lord, I need your help.  We need your help.  We need you to teach us how to enjoy being New Hope Counselors.  Open the ears of our hearts to what you're saying and what our callers and chatters are saying.  Direct our tongues to speak your caring words.  And loosen us up to live in your joy, to laugh with holy laughter.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.

When To Listen

Knowing when to listen and when to talk is half of what makes a good New Hope Counselor. Probably the most common mistake we make is talking too much.  On staff we always know we're in trouble when we get a volunteer application like this:

"Why do you want to volunteer?"..  "Because I need someone to talk to!"

We usually mark that in red and tell the person to count how many ears they have and how many mouths they have. 

Have you ever thought about that?  God could have given us two mouths and one ear.

At New Hope we're about listening. and not just with our ears, but with our hearts also. 

Now you might think that we stress listening so much because we don't trust you to say the right things.  And that'd be true! 

Face it, a lot of you talk like the great Yankee who is now in the Hall of Fame.  Yogi Berra was such a great baseball player and a nice person too, but he said some stupid things.  Lots of them.  They're called "Yogisms."  We don't want you saying stuff like this.  I'm serious.  Listen to some of these Yogisms.  They're not helpful things to say.

"It ain't over 'til it's over."
"Never answer an anonymous letter."
"I usually take a two hour nap from one to four."
"It's deja vu all over again."
"When you come to a fork in the road.... Take it."
"I didn't really say everything I said."
"You can observe a lot by watching."
When asked what time is was...... "You mean now?"
"If the people don't want to come to the ballpark, nobody's going to stop them."
On why NY lost the 1960 World Series: "We made too many wrong mistakes."
"The future ain't what it used to be."
"It gets late early out here."

Like Yogi, if we're not careful we can really put our foot in our mouth when we give New Hope Counseling.  Like this counselor did.  I took this off one of our New Hope Online chat transcripts:

Counselor: What seems to be the problem?

Caller: Well, as far as I am concerned it is my family. You see, I love books, and they think that there is something wrong in that: they say that I love them excessively.

Counselor (with strong feeling): How ridiculous! They are quite wrong. It is an excellent thing to love books. I love them myself, and I always have.

Caller: Oh, it is such a relief to find someone who understands!  How do you like them best: boiled or sautèed?

Listening with your heart is hard!

Sunday morning I didn't listen very good.  I had just given the announcement in the service at the Crystal Cathedral, trying to recruit some more volunteers to help all of you answer our hotline and serve in our chat room.  How many of you heard my announcement?  Then you know that I told everyone to go to the New Hope table and talk to one of our "friendly volunteers." 

The service got out early and I went out to help at the table.  Our volunteer team wasn't there yet.  So I got into the mode that I'd greet the people myself who came to the table.  Pretty soon a woman comes up to the table and is looking at the flyers so I smiled and asked her, "Can I answer any of your questions about New Hope?"

About this time Joe Rosenblatt, John Lotspeich, and Louise Dunn show up at the table to help out.  So as they're standing there, the lady frowns at me and gripes, "How much does this cost?  Why are you charging for this?"

I reply, "The normal cost is $60."

"You man people have to pay to volunteer?"

"Well it costs the Crystal Cathedral about $250 per trainee to do this class.  We give a great training program so we feel like it's a good deal."

"Hmmph!  That's debatable."

"Have you ever been to a conference?  I pay $100 or $200 for weekend conference and our program is nine weeks long."

"This is different," she blurted.  Her irritation had become combativeness.  She had quite a chip on her shoulder.  It was a very unpleasant conversation!

So I knocked the chip off her shoulder, "Well, if the fee is an issue for you then this probably isn't for you."

Then she glared at me, "What's your name?"

"Bill Gaultiere."

"What do you do here?"

"I'm the Executive Director of New Hope."

"Interesting attitude for an Executive Director!" and she stormed off.

Oh my!  I felt sick inside.  Not because I was afraid she'd complain about the rude Executive Director of New Hope.  Not because we lost a possible volunteer.  (I think Susie is probably thankful that I dealt with her myself.)  I felt sick inside because I didn't like way I had gotten embroiled into a negative conversation.

What could I have done differently?  I wish I would have asked her some questions instead of getting defensive.  I wanted to be more patient and kind.  I could have offered that she didn't need to pay all at once or could apply for a scholarship.

Or, better yet, I could've let our "friendly volunteers" Joe and John take over!

I guess that's why I teach the class, "Setting Boundaries with Difficult People."

The Bible certainly has a lot to say about the importance of listening.  Take James for instance.  He was Jesus' brother and one of the 12 disciples.  I think he knew his stuff.  Six times in his epistle he tells us that we need to listen.  For instance, he said:

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry" (James 1:19, NIV).

I like how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse:

"Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear" (James 1:19, MSG).

James realizes that we want to talk too much.  In order to learn to learn to listen we need to be yanked by the ears while our tongue flops along behind!

Or consider these wise Proverbs in our Bibles:

"Let the wise listen and add to their learning" (Proverbs 1:5a, NIV).

"He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame" (Proverbs 18:13, NIV).

"Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path" (Proverbs 23:19, NIV).

Just this morning my wife Kristi went in to wake up our kids for school.  Nobody wants to be woken up with loud, incessant talking!  So Kristi was quietly listening to Briana make a few comments about the day ahead.  As she listened, Kristi was gently rubbing Briana's back and telling her how she had the same type of light skin that Kristi has.  She said she liked Briana's skin because it was so soft. 

Briana says, "Is that because my skin is new?"  (Meaning your skin is old!)

Chatty Kathy

On my recent vacation my family and I were at the Renovare Spiritual Renewal Retreat led by Richard Foster in Estes Park, Colorado.  While there Kristi and I met a precious woman who we'll never forget.  Her name is Kathy.  Kathy is in her late 50's I believe.  Recently, she suffered from a stroke that damaged the language center of her brain so that she can't speak or write.  The only words she can say are "Yes" and "No."  The only other ways she can communicate are by making sounds and gestrues, pointing, or drawing pictures.  She can understand what other people say to her perfectly.  She can think her thoughts just as intelligently as before, but she can't put them into words - verbally or in writing.

Now Kathy is a very intelligent and deeply spiritual.  She's spent years growing as Christian, reading books by Richard Foster and others on Spiritual Formation, and speaking to groups of people about the spiritual life.  Her friends called her "Chatty Kathy" because she always had something to say.  Now she can't talk.

So here was "Chatty Kathy" at a retreat with her husband, participating in spiritual services and meeting people and having so much to say, but unable to speak.  Even worse, one of the things she kept hearing from the retreat speakers was the importance of going into periods of silence in order to grow spiritually.  In fact, part of the program each day at the retreat was a period of silence for hours.  It's one thing to choose to be silent in order to listen to God, other people, nature, your own thoughts and feelings.  But to be forced into silence for three years and counting. That's another matter altogether!

This was Kathy's situation.  When my wife Kristi and I had lunch with her we learned so much as we tried to understand her by looking into her eyes, observing her facial expressions and hand gestures, studying her pictures, putting words to what we sensed she was experiencing and communicating, waiting for her to say "Yes" with excitement when we understood her or to shake her head and say "No" when we hadn't yet understood her point.  We learned a lot about what Kathy experiences: her frustration, her pain of feeling alone and not understood, her longings to share her ideas and wisdom.  Kathy has so many beautiful and profound things to say and yet even without the use of words - perhaps because she had no words - she was able to teach Kristi and I powerful messages when we listened to her with our hearts.  God spoke to us through Kathy.

I found that listening to her was like listening to God.  Think about it.  Rarely, does God speak direct, audible words to people.  We're fortunate he doesn't actually!  His voice booms like thunder!  Mountains quake and smoke billows and blinding light flashes when God talks.  So normally he speaks in the "still, small voice" of thoughts, sunsets, singing birds, other people, or his written Word.  Imagine God's frustration!  He has so very much to communicate to us and we don't stop to listen close.

Getting to know Kathy was so enriching for Kristi and I that we wanted other people to have the same privilege!  And, more importantly, we wanted her to be able to connect with friends and share all that God has been teaching her, not just in the decades before her stroke, but also in the last two years since her stroke. 

At one point on the retreat there was time set aside for healing prayer so we went over to her and laid hands on her to pray that God would restore the language function of her brain and loose her tongue so that she could speak again.  And that if it wasn't his plan for her to speak again that he'd enable her to communicate her spiritual wisdom to people who would listen to her pantomime and pictures.  I told Kathy that in my mind I saw God using her in the future to somehow communicate to large groups of people in churches and at Christian conferences.

At the end of the retreat during a time of sharing and worship Kathy stood up to share!  A hush fell over the audience of 200, as many knew her story.  "Hold me Jesus.  Hold me Jesus," she whispered.  Her first words, other than yes or no, since her stroke two years ago!  These were words we had all been singing together during evening prayers each day.  Kathy had sung them with us in her heart and had experienced them a deeper level.  Now the longing of her heart came bursting out in words so beautiful and touching.  We'll never forget her life and the yearning of her child-like heart, "Hold me Jesus." 

In her silence Kathy is hearing God and teaching others like me how to listen and talk with our hearts as she does.

When To Talk

Of course, we do want you to talk when you give New Hope Counseling.  When you do talk though we tell you DON'T GIVE ADVICE!  But still some of you do it and sometimes it creates a liability risk for us.  We're volunteer counselors here, not professionals, so we need to be careful not to be giving advice.

Here's an example.  I can't believe this really happened, but it did.  One of our counselors responded to someone in distress and we were surprised to read his Contact sheet on the conversation.  He indicated that the reason why the woman contacted New Hope was because she had a problem with Bees.  Yes, bees. B-E-E-S.

When we checked into it further we learned that she needed someone to get rid of a swarm of bees.  And our counselor gave her advice!  He told her that she should call "Mighty Bug" Insect Exterminator! 

This is a true story.  Here we've got a crazy lady calling us about a swarm of bees and our counselor refers her to a poison company!  Think of the liability here in this advice he gave.  Somebody could get stung!  Or worse, somebody could get poisoned to death!

That's why we tell you not to give advice.  We really need to be more careful. 

We also tell you not to give reassurance.  You know, telling hurting people that everything will be okay or that you really care.  We tell you not to try to make people feel better.  Instead we want you to listen and reflect back their feelings.  But a counselor named Bob gave reassurance.  (Bob doesn't volunteer here anymore - for reasons that will become obvious pretty soon! - so it's okay for me to use his name.)

You know that one of the special things about New Hope is that we answer people's phone calls and respond to their chats with live help, one-on-one, 24-hours a day.  Where else can you find that?  New Hope is the very first church-sponsored telephone counseling center in America.  And New Hope Online is the first - and as far as we know the only - service in the world and on the Internet to offer free and private counseling 24x7.

So here's what happened.  This was a few years ago.  I was in our phone room and I overheard counselor Bob respond, "Hello, New Hope.  This is Bob.  How can I help you?"

There was a pause and then Bob said, "Yes, I am an actual person.  I am not a machine.  No, this is not a recording!  You're really talking to me!"

That's reassurance!  Bob shouldn't be saying things just to make her feel better.  He should have validated her feelings by saying something like,

"You feel as though you're talking to a machine." 

"You're having trouble believing that I'm a real person." 

"It sounds like you're tired of leaving messages and playing phone tag."

Something like that would have validated her feelings. 

I suppose we could put a message on our phone lines like some people use.  You've probably heard some crazy answering machines.  Here's a few that are really loopey:

"Hi.  This is Jason.  If you are the phone company, I already sent the money.  If you are my parents, please send money.  If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money.  If you are female, don't worry, I have plenty of money!"

"Hi.  John's answering machine is broken.  This is his refrigerator.  Please speak very slowly, and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets."

"Hi.  I am probably home.  I'm just avoiding someone I don't like.  Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you."

Here's another one.  This one is more appropriate for New Hope.  Perhaps for some of our stuck frequent callers.  We'd have to be careful with it because we wouldn't want to hurt anyone.  But you tell me what you think about it.  At least it avoids having counselors say things they shouldn't like give advice or reassurance.  Also, it could lower the drop out rate among our volunteers by saving time with some of the stuck frequent callers.  Imagine if you could push a button on your phone and play this:

Hello.  Welcome to the Hopeless Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want.  Just stay on the line until we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press.  No one will answer.

I don't know which number you're pressing.  I'm obsessive-compulsive so I'm pressing 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2.

Or he's another case.  This goes way, way out of bounds.  Bad enough to give advice, but even worse is to get emotionally involved with callers and chatters.  That's why we give you alias names and we stay anonymous.  We just want to protect you and, in this type of case, you're marriage.  This is really an unbelievable story, but it's true.  A few of you have even heard me tell this story.

One day a woman named Marci from the East Coast called New Hope at 3:50 am.  As you know, people contact us in the middle of the night all the time from across America and around the world so that part is not unusual or problematic.  But listen to this part.  Marci called New Hope because she was in labor and about to give birth to her baby!  She was waiting for her mother to pick her up and take her to the hospital.  Ladies, wouldn't you call New Hope if you were about to deliver a baby?

Well, our New Hope Counselor really felt for this poor woman.  I mean she was in labor and having contractions!  She was scared and needed help.  Never mind that she was 3,000 miles away and that he wasn't a doctor or midwife or nurse!  Never mind that our counselor was married and should save such intimate things for his wife!  He didn't let any of these things stop him.  He had just gone through LaMaze with his wife to coach her when she gave birth so he thought he was qualified and knew just what to do. 

I guess we should've known better.  You know who the counselor was?  Bob.  Yes, the same Bob I just told you about!  The same Bob who is no longer with New Hope.  So here's what Bob says to Marci as she's in labor and on the phone with him:

"Here it comes.  Candle blow: whew - whew - whew.  Good job!  Okay, relax.  Let's try some deep breathing.  Breathe in deep: Whoooooooooo.  Hold it.  Release: Wheeeeeeeeeew."

Finally, Marci's mother arrived or else Bob would've delivered her baby over the phone!

Better to focus on being a caring listener, don't you think?  We can't have you doing stuff like that!

Here's another example of a problem with a counselor straying from New Hope's Active Listening approach.  One of our counselors - and I'm not going to mention the name on this one - has slipped into offering analysis.  He says he studied Freud in college.  I told him that doesn't make him qualified.  But he does it anyway, as with this call.

Caller: "Please tell me what is wrong with me. I was standing at the jeweler's counter. He had put a lot of rings out for me to look at. Then, when he turned his back to the counter I quickly transferred some rings from the counter to my bag. Please tell me. Am I suffering from kleptomania?"

Counselor: "Hmmm. Let's see. I think you have a simple case of Counter Transference."

Seriously, as New Hope Counselors we need to talk sometimes.  One of the most important things we do is to ask questions.  I learned this the hard way a while ago.

I was going to the water cooler at our New Hope office.  You know that you can get purified water there.  Everyday at the office I'd do the same thing, usually a few times a day, for years I did this: I'd push down the blue lever to fill my mug with cold water, heat it for two minutes in the microwave while I tapped my fingers, put my bag of herbal tea in there, and then be on my way. 

Well, one day I noticed this hand-written sign above the red lever with a diagram and the words: "Squeeze lever here and then push down for hot, purified water."  You're kidding!  You mean all these years the red lever worked!  I didn't have to wait while the microwave heated my water?  If only I had asked the question of someone in the office, "Does the red lever for hot water work?  How do you use it?"

Active listening begins with asking questions.  Not just any questions.  We're interested in people's souls, their inner selves.  So we like to ask open questions that invite deeper self-disclosure about the hurts and hopes of their hearts.  Open questions can't be answered with a yes or a no and invite elaboration on an issue.

By the way, asking open questions is what I didn't do at the New Hope table on Sunday!

When To Laugh

I told you that knowing when to listen and when to talk is half of what makes a good New Hope Counselor.  What's the other half?  Knowing when to laugh!  I'm serious.  If you can't lighten up and laugh about some things then being a crisis counselor will depress you and you'll burn out and quit. 

This is all the more true since we're Christians.  Not only are we trying to help people who are in crisis - you know, prevent suicides and comfort hurts and hold the hand of stuck frequent callers and all that - but we're also trying to serve God.  New Hope is a Christian ministry as well as a crisis hotline and crisis chat room.  This is important stuff!  I mean we're trying to impact lives for eternity!  So we Christian crisis helpers especially need to see the humor in life.

I love what G. K Chesteron said: "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

Imagine this.  You've just helped a suicidal caller to New Hope choose life.  The caller was ready to commit suicide, but your caring and suicide intervention saved her life.  You're driving home from New Hope and suddenly you hear a voice in the back seat: "Ask me whatever you want and I'll do it for you."

You're like, "Huh?"  You turn around and no one is there.  "I must be hearing things," you think to yourself.  "This can't be." 

But then you hear it again, "Yes, this is St. Peter talking.  God is so pleased with you he'll give you whatever you want."

You turn around and there's St. Peter.  He even has the halo over his head and the staff in his hand.  "Amazing!" you say out loud, as you hit the steering wheel with your hands.  Looking over your shoulder again you say, "St. Peter!  I can't believe it's really you!  What do I ask for?  I could ask for wisdom as Solomon did and he got wisdom AND riches and honor.  No, I need to be more original."

Finally, you answer, "St. Peter, I would like a bridge.  I love bridges, especially the Golden Gate Bridge.  But I love all bridges.  I've traveled the world to see and drive different bridges.  I'd like a bridge!  Yes, that's what I want God to give me.  I want a bridge with two-lanes going each way and have it be my very own, with my name on it."

St. Peter replies, "Hmmm.  That's a most unusual request.  Are you sure that's what you want?  You can ask for anything.  You don't want a bridge do you?"

"Yes, that's what would make me happy.  You know, I'm a bridge-builder for God.  I help people like that New Hope caller connect to God."

"Yes, I see.  Let me see what I can do."  Then St. Peter gets on his cell phone and starts making calls to the Trinity, the angels and the saints in heaven.  Then he hangs up and says, "Can't do it.  It's the first request I've had to deny.  Ask for anything else and God will do it for you."

"Well," you rub your chin, "I suppose there is something.  Actually, this would help me more than a bridge.  What I want is to understand women.  I have a wife and two daughters and I work with women and I want to be able to make sense of their moods and desires, to know how their minds work so I can make a woman happy.  I've never had a really good relationship with a woman."

St. Peter just sits there stunned.  His jaw is dropped open and his eyes are staring blankly.  Finally, he blinks and replies, "How many lanes did you want on that bridge?"

I guess that St. Peter just has a way about him that's funny.  Surely that's why he's involved in so many funny stories.  Like this one:

A man dies and goes to heaven. Of course, St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates.  He explains to the man, "Here's how it works. You need 100 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things you've done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was. When you reach 100 points, you get in."

"Okay," the man says. "I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, even in my heart."

"That's wonderful," says St. Peter, "that's worth three points!"

"Three points! That's all?" he complains. "Well, here's something more religious.  This ought to be worth a lot of points: I attended church all my life and supported its ministry with my tithe and service."

"Terrific!" says St. Peter, "that's certainly worth a point."

"One point? Oh, c'mon!  You don't know how boring some of those sermons were!  Surely, a life of church involvement is worth more than one measly point!"

"I'm sorry," St. Peter replies.  "One point is all I can give you for that."

"Well here's a really good one.  This is big!  Actually this is two different things: I started a soup kitchen in my city and I worked in a shelter for homeless veterans."

"Fantastic, that's good for two more points, " he says.

"TWO POINTS!!" the man cries, "At this rate the only way I'll get into heaven is by the grace of God!"

"Come on in!"

Humor and Scripture

Learning to laugh is serious stuff actually.  Sometimes we can really help people by laughing with them.  The Bible has a lot to say about this too.  You know it says "Weep with those who weep," but it also says in the very same verse "Rejoice with those who rejoice" (Romans 12:15, NASB).

God laughs.  Did you know that?  Yes, there are many verses in the Bible that show us God laughing.  Here's one:

            "But You, O LORD, laugh at them" (Psalm 59:8a, NIV).

Well, maybe it's not funny for you when God laughs at you, but it's funny for other people!

How about the Bible story about Abraham and Isaac?  I'm not talking about when Abraham tied up young Isaac on the altar and was about to plunge a knife into him to sacrifice him to God.  That was a scary story!  Thankfully the angel came and straightened things out.  This story comes after it.  It's less well-known.

In this story Abraham bought himself a fancy new computer. He was showing it to Isaac one day.  "Look at all the wonderful programs it has on it. And look at all the neat things it can do..."

Isaac was impressed, but being of the younger generation he knew more about computers than his dad and he was concerned so he said, "But dad, I don't think your computer has enough memory."

Abraham said "Don't worry son; the Lord will provide the RAM."  (As in RAM computer memory.)

Jesus certainly made people laugh at times.  Miraculously putting a coin in a fish's mouth to pay the taxes he owes!  Imagine that.  Making a fig tree wither when he saw that it had no figs yet because it wasn't the harvest season.  Just to prove his point that Israel wasn't ripe for harvest yet?  Telling people that if they had faith they could throw mountains into the sea.

Solomon urges us to appreciate the humor in things and let the laughter roll:

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22, NIV).

I don't know about you, but I don't want my bones to be dry bones.  That's what dogs like to chew on!

So laughter can be a good, healing thing.  I had an example of this on my recent vacation with my family.  If you receive my "Christian Soul Care Devotional" in your e-mail twice a month then you've heard this story, but it's such a good story that I'm sure you won't mind hearing it again.  If you're not getting that e-mail you can sign up at my website, ChristianSoulCare.com.

David and I were Mountain Biking in Estes Park, Colorado.  It was a rainy day and we were riding on a trail at the base of Long's Peak, the tallest mountain in America at over 14,000 feet.  We were 4,000 feet below the snow-covered peak, but believe me, two miles high was high enough!  We were gasping for oxygen on our twenty-mile trek as we pumped our way up foothills and screamed down them!  We steered over rocky terrain, splashed through creeks, sloshed through muddy paths, and slid across narrow bridges. 

"Woah!  Arghh!  Ow!" 

"Oh, my!  David, are you ok?"

The steep downhill path had taken a sudden turn onto a wooden bridge and David soared right over the side of the bridge and crashed on top of his bike in the riverbank below!  He fell so far and so fast that his shoes flew off his feet!  He scratched his face near his eye and banged up his shoulder pretty good, but he was okay. 

After he gathered himself, we retrieved his shoes from the tall grass at the edge of the river.  Then he passed his bike up to me on the bridge and climbed out of the riverbank.  As he got back on his bike he looked over at me and smiled, "I'm a professional faller!"

Suddenly, my mind flashed back eight years to when he was five years old and I was trying to teach him to ride a bike. 

"No, Dad, don't touch my bike!  I can do it myself!.  Woah!  Arghh!  Ow!. 

"Oh, my!  David, are you ok?"

"I can't ride this bike.  I hate myself!"

"David, don't be so hard on yourself.  Everybody falls when they're learning to ride a bike.  You'll get the hang of it."

"Don't say that.  No, I won't.  Leave me alone."

I smiled back at my now teenage son and laughed with him, "Yeah, that was amazing the way you went flying over the bridge!"  I was so happy to see that my boy is growing up in God's grace, learning to fall and get back up, to try again without leaving his self-esteem or his smile in the ditch.