How to Fall

Spoiler: keep moving

Anybody that walks and runs on concrete city streets has fallen many times whether they're young or old and even if they are in perfect health. I've fallen a good half dozen times and I've been injured only once, back in October 2023.

It wasn't because I was old, weak and losing my balance. It was because I stepped on an uneven surface of the sidewalk where one of the many Southern California earthquakes had split the concrete in half, and I wasn't looking at where my feet were landing. So I fell, hit the side of my head and broke one of my pairs of glasses, which actually protected me. One of my top front teeth bit into my bottom lip, so I was bleeding like a stuck pig. This also loosened that tooth, and it was loose for four months. I went to the doctor at the VA, to see if they could do something about it, but the ER doctor acted like I was trying to run some sort of scam or something.

So I just kept the area around the tooth clean like I normally do: water flossing with hydrogen peroxide and regular flossing. One of my prayers during that time: “Please, Lord. You know how vain I am. Don't let me lose a tooth!”

The tooth moved front-to-back instead of side-to-side, and I could feel the connective tissue under my top lip, over my maxilla. so that was a bit disconcerting. But after four months, the tooth was back to normal.

Prayer and maintenance; that was the ticket. My bottom lip was cut by my tooth and was swollen - it looked like somebody had punched me. But it shrunk down back to normal in only a day

Falling is just a thing that happens, especially in a city like Los Angeles and not just because of the quakes. There are many old trees with huge roots that have broken through the sidewalk and you have to watch yourself.

There are places that if you don't raise your foot up high enough, you will trip, and sometimes you will fall. Now, I have enough experience in walking that I know how to fall but here's the thing: whenever I go out of the house, whatever I'm doing, it doesn't matter whether I'm walking or driving or going to a store, I pray Psalm 91. Long ago, I personalized the Psalm for myself. Sometimes I forget, and I'll go, "Oh, yeah” and pray. And as I've said before, I try not to recite it which can happen because I know it by heart. But when I find myself reciting it, I stop and start again.

There's a key area inside the Psalm, “he has given his angels charge over thee to keep thee and all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Now, that passage has multiple meanings, but it's my belief that there are many places in the Bible that have multiple meanings. In this one, I pray that my guardian angels would bear me up in their hands, should I fall.

But even for my worst fall, I was totally healed, especially since I hit my temple against the sidewalk. My glasses took one for the team and cushioned the blow. There was no pain, no open wound, no concussion, nothing. And the injuries I did have healed up perfectly. Without treatment.

So anyway, back to regular non-injury falling. There have been times where I knew that I was going to fall on concrete and I turned my body over in midair onto the parkway - the grass between the sidewalk and the street - and landed on the grass. I've done this several times.

And now we come to the incident that happened a few weeks ago.

I was walking on a new route - a main street where there was no parkway. As I lifted my foot up, there was a string. It seemed as though the string was taut and connected on both sides of the street. But that's impossible right?

The bottom of my Left foot hit the string causing me to trip. I felt myself going all the way over, seemingly unable to recover. And it looked like I was going to hit either my knees or my head onto the concrete. Hard.

Here's what I did: I kept moving my feet. I kept putting them as far forward as possible as the rest of me kept falling.

It slowed down the fall so much that, by the time I couldn't stop myself from hitting the ground, I was able to put my hands out so that the only thing that touched the ground was my palms.

My hands weren't hurt at all, because I was so close to the ground.

Right here you’ll see James Worthy of the Showtime LA Lakers doing both versions of my falls - while whipping up on the Celtics of course.

But when I talk about accidents happening, too many people are willing to focus on the worst outcome imaginable, rather than on God and His mercy. I don't like to engender doubt and fear in other people, especially since I have my own doubts and fears to master. But this is one of the ways in which God has been merciful to me and I think that you need to know this.

Here's what I'm going to do: keep moving, not just walking, but in all areas of life and I'm asking the Lord to give me the faith and the power to act. I can't just sit back on my butt and say, "Oh, maybe I'm getting too old to walk and do all the things I want.” One of the things I also pray for is that I have the old age of Caleb. You might go read about him in the book of Joshua. Movement is healing.

So that was another of God’s miracles. I'll let you know about the next one.