Not your normal reaction

One year when I was in college I came home for the Christmas holiday break. One of my old friends called and asked if I’d like to go out dancing with a large group on New Year’s Eve.
I said that sounded great. “Oh, by the way,” he said just before he hung up the phone, “this will be like a blind date—there’s a girl coming who we’ve set you up with.”

We all met at his house and then left together to go dancing. I was introduced to that girl and sat next to her in the car. I tried to talk a little with her, but I could see that she was sort of shy. I kept trying, although she didn’t even look at me. Even after we arrived and started dancing I could tell she was uncomfortable. So I really went out of my way to take care of her and always stay right near her.

Soon everyone was having fun at this New Year’s Eve party. Gradually this girl started smiling, having a great time, and talking and laughing with almost everyone.

It got pretty crazy out there on the dance floor as it got closer to midnight. I used to be able to do a standing back flip. I’d leap in the air, tuck in my knees, flip over backward, and land back on my feet. I did a couple of those, and even my date thoProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ht it was cool…or at least funny.

The third time I tried it, I landed on a place on the floor where someone had spilled something. I never even got my hands out to stop my fall. The first thing to hit was my nose—and it broke.

I stood up, and because I didn’t want to leave that shy girl alone on the dance floor, I just kept dancing. My nose was crooked and bleeding, but I just sort of smiled and blinked the water out of my eyes, trying to hear the music. Maybe that’s not the normal reaction, but I didn’t want to make the girl feel uncomfortable again.

The next day I woke up wanting to pray for myself but wondering how to. I was in pain and feeling remorse for doing something as stupid as breaking my nose on a dance floor, yet I knew that I could never be beyond the help that prayer could give me. As I thought about God’s allness, and of how His law of perfection for man is above and, in fact, completely supersedes the physics of noses and dance floors, I started to laugh.

I could still see the startled look on that poor girl’s face as I continued to dance after falling. Her mouth wouldn’t close, and she became more and more bewildered—and quiet—on the way home. I could tell she was thinking, “I will never go on a blind date again!” My plan to make her feel at ease clearly hadn’t worked.

The whole thing amused me so much that, after praying along the lines I mentioned above, I found I wasn’t impressed by the material scene or afraid of it. God’s allness was so clear and real that I found I could laugh at what I believed confronted me.

That very evening my nose was straight again. By the next day the soreness was gone, and there never was any bruising. No, I never saw that girl again, and, to this day, she’s probably still hoping that she’ll never run into me. ☺