The mind is willing...

but the body is not. Well that is not true, actually the body tries, but with limited success. Let me set the stage for you... I was an athlete... baseball, basketball, football, any and all sports I loved to play. While in Jr. High and High School I was good at academics but I loved sports. I would drag myself out of bed on test days, but on game days I was ready to go. All day long my mind would drift to game time, readying myself for the competition. After school was over I went onto college and played pickup basketball games at college and around town. Then it was onto softball, in church leauges and industrial leauges. I have stayed active throughout my life until I started Pastoring. Then time got tight and the sports had to be cut out as church time adn family time were more important to me. So it has been at least 5 years since I have been in a competitive enviroment. Of course I have played on some summer softball teams during tournaments, told myself I was not going to slide but when faced with scoring the go ahead run found myself belly flopping into home plate but the tremors were felt a county away. Was part of a church leauge softball team a few years ago, pitched our team and got plantar fasciatis (bottom of the foot tendon problems) that took six months to go away. But I was still an athlete!! I played basketball and softball with my kids and was still athletic but last Sunday something happened.
We went bowling as a family. I of course was going to kill everyone at the alley as first I could have been a good bowler if I applied myself. I am an athlete remember? I can roll a 150 in my sleep and have gone as high as 190 without practice... so it is me, my wife, and my four kids. The game started off well, spare off the bat, and I am cruising through the first five frames with two spares and a strike, probably on my way to at least a 150 and I am just warming up. Then it happened. Going to throw my ball down the lane I looked like a pro, four steps forward, ball goes back, bend over left leg sweeps behind the right as I throw my perfect hook for a strike when, SNAP, I feel something in my right leg pop. The ball ended up in the gutter and I limped back to the ball return. My wife laughed at me and I told them I think I hurt myself. Well I am an athlete so I can play through pain. I retrieve my ball, take my stance and proceed down and I can't bend my knee to follow through without it feeling like someone was sawing on it. Five pins as I did not get down low enough. I gutted out the remaining frames and decided I was done for the day. The knee felt like it could lock up and I was having pain on the inside of the knee. I have never really injured my knee before so I am thinking what is wrong. We get back home and it is so stiff that I put some ice on it. Sitting at work on Monday, it is getting so stiff that it takes effort to bend it back straight. And last night it looks like it is swollen. So what happened?
Age happened... I am not 20 any more, or 25, 30, or 35 for that matter. I am 40 and things I used to be able to do I find myself not being able to do it anymore... When did I get old? What happenend to me? How did this happen?
Well my friend, it happens to all of us. It is part of our design that we begin to break down until eventually these earthen vessels cease to work. I am now faced with my own mortality and it is a sobering throught. So as I lumber into the sunset, limping as I go, remember to enjoy the things in life to their fullest, you never know when you might blow out a knee...