High-Centered
We grew up in a pickup camper towing a ski boat. On the weekends we would load up two boys, two beagles, the camper and a ski boat and head for the lake. We avoided campgrounds and parks and found out of the way places to grow up and grow together as a family. Places that were usually free from boom boxes, beer parties and noisy people.
Most of the time, it was near heaven. Occasionally, it was hell.
Our favorite spot for a quick get-away was perched on a sand hill under two big oak trees overlooking a wide part of the lake. Sand, the key descriptor, is not conducive to traction. So, more than once we got the pickup camper stuck.
To get out dad gave his two growing boys multiple turns at a shovel to dig out the area around the truck frame so the wheels could get traction. Multiple turns meant he drank beer in the Oklahoma heat while my sweating brother and I dug in the sand burrs a hole in which we could have buried the high-centered truck.
We’d dig. Dad would try to back out the truck, move a few feet and get high-centered again. We’d dig. He’d get high centered. Et centera (an intentional misspelling). You get the picture. Frustration. Sweat. More beer. Encouraging words were rare. “Ass holes and elbows” was one of his favorite phrases that even now echoes in my head.
Finally, knowing that his boys were a finite resource, dad found the farmer on whose land we had trespassed to camp and with his tractor pulling us we were set free.
*****
To get off high-center the right tool is what I need.
I get high centered. Stuck. While I avoid the alcohol, I incite frustration, mental sweat and negative words that seem to only dig a deeper hole in which I can bury myself.For me, it is getting away from digging the hole and reminding myself of what’s important. What is my place in the Kingdom? What are my gifts? What am I supposed to do with them? Those are my tractor.
If you want to work on your place in the kingdom, what equipment and tools you have to accomplish what’s important, contact me and we can chat.
