Leaves

When I was little, probably about two or three, I had a traumatic encounter with leaves. I was walking across a gravel church parking lot with my parents one Sunday, wearing a brand new pair of white Mary Janes with adorable pink stockings, and happily kicking up little piles of autumn leaves that had gathered on the ground. While walking over one such seemingly innocent pile, my right foot was instantly sunk into a wet, muddy puddle, which filled my beautiful shoe with cold, blackish water all the way up over my ankle. My lovely pink stockings were ruined, and my shoe never regained its former luster, thus forever being mismatched with the left one. I have since come to step gingerly around such potentially deceptive leaf piles.

While I remember this incident every single fall, I was experientially reminded of it the other day on one of my bi-weekly walks to campus for the class I'm teaching. As I was rounding a curve of one street, a large pickup truck came barreling around the bend at a most unsafe speed. This forced me to hop quickly into the long pile of leaves in front of my one of my neighbors' houses and walk there for a few steps. Lo and behold, what happens, but that I step on the edge of the road which was expertly hidden by the leaves, trip rather ungracefully, and fall onto my knees in the middle of the leaf mountain. I'm sure the big, burly guy in the pickup truck got his laugh for the afternoon. However, nothing was hurt except my pride and whatever faith I had gained in leaf piles.

This got me to thinking, though: isn't most sin often a little like those hidden puddles and drop-offs underneath seemingly fun piles of leaves? You're walking along, shuffling through and kicking up crunchy leaves with the flourish of a three-year-old, and having a blast! Then, wham! Your foot discovers something nasty the fun leaves were hiding and that discovery completely messes up your walk...and potentially ruins something forever.

I don't really know where I'm going with this except that it just reminded me to be careful about where I "walk." Something that looks so fun and innocent can be hiding something sinister. So, I guess we should all just walk through leaves at our own risk...or maybe avoid roadside and parking lot piles altogether.
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