From our weakness

Last week at the kids school was Jump Rope for Heart. This is a fund raiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. To raise money, the kids jump rope for an hour in the gym, and collect pledges. The jumping isn't for an hour straight - they take turns in "teams", with each kid jumping for a minute at a time, and then resting for a couple of minutes before their turn again.

I dropped in to check up on Doug. (Allison had already volunteered with Samantha, who had jumped earlier in the day)

As you probably have figured out by this point in my blogging life, Doug isn't really a prime candidate for jumping rope. He doesn't have the strength in his legs to jump off the ground high enough to get a rope underneath - let alone to actually swing a rope at the same time. But there he was, taking his full turn in his team. And with the biggest determined grin on his face, he jumped. The rope made deliberate swinging motions, and his feet all but left the ground. Calling the motion skipping would be akin to calling my playoff goal celebrations "ballet" - but there was my Little Biker - giving his all for the cause.

It wasn't his ability that moved me that day, it was his willingness and determination to act in spite of his weakness. And it was his weakness that made my heart all the stronger. There was no "I can't do this", no copping out with a perfectly valid excuse - just a determined response to answer the call.

How much could I improve my life by taking his point of view? Instead of looking for the seemingly abundant reasons not to do things, why don't I just pick up my rope and jump? I think that many of us struggle with the misconception that we have to do things perfectly right, or they're not worth doing at all. Often, the fact that we are not the right person to do the job is what makes our help all the more meaningful. When we're going through rough patches in life, what we crave more than anything else is for someone to struggle through things with us. But we get too caught up in our own weaknesses and struggles to remember this simple point. We focus on ourselves, and all the things we can't do - when really, the power to impact the lives of our neighbours lies in our very struggles.

Pick up your rope, and jump.