This past weekend my daughter overcame a huge milestone, riding her bike without training wheels. It was definitely a proud momma moment. On Saturday we took the training wheels off and by Sunday afternoon she was riding around like it was no one’s business. I’ll admit, I felt that little twinge of sadness, knowing that my first baby is big enough to ride a bike. As she was riding off I felt like she needed me a little less. However, this is not the reason for this post 🙂
While I was watching my husband teach my daughter to ride her bike, I learned an awesome life lesson: KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE PEDDLES. Let me expand a little: B had a hard time at first with fear. As she was riding along and she started to lose her balance and get wobbly, she would instantly lift her feet up off of the peddles. As you can imagine, she instantly lost control, and her and the bike would come crashing down. This is how the conversation would go: My husband: “Keep your feet on the peddles!” B: “I’m going to fall though! I’m scared!” My husband: “I’m not going to let you fall! I’m holding on the whole time!” B: “You promise daddy?” My husband: “I promise! But you have to keep peddling, if you stop peddling you’re going to fall down and get hurt.” B: “Ok, I’m sorry daddy, I’m just scared that I’m going to fall and get hurt really bad.” My husband: “You’ll be ok, I’m holding on.”
They would then start again and pretty soon, B’s bike would start to wobble, her feet would instantly fly off of the peddles and my husband would start the dialogue over again. He finally got a little fed up with it and finally let go of the bike after she took her feet off of the peddles and let her fall down. As he was helping her stand up he said, “See, when you take your feet off of the peddles you will fall down. I am right here, holding on to you, but you have to trust me.” And right there, was when I was hit with a life lesson.
As we go through life we have someone holding on to our bikes, all of the time! Our Heavenly Father is right there with us trying to teach us and help us. When things get hard, wobbly or scary we want to take our feet off of the peddles. We instantly think that we are going to fall down and get hurt. Watching my husband’s frustration grow made me realize how our Heavenly Father must feel all of the time. He knows the outcome, he knows that if we fall down just a few times, we will eventually learn what we need to do to better ourselves and we will be better off because we had to fight through the fear and wobbly times. When my daughter took her feet off of the peddles it made it really hard for my husband to catch the bike and her. When we take our feet off of the peddles it’s really hard for him to catch us.
When things get hard and it seems like we can’t continue on, we need to keep our feet on the peddles. Our Heavenly Father will hold the back of our bikes and help us along until we get the hang of things, become stronger and more confident. Once we reach that point, our Heavenly Father doesn’t need to hold right on every time, he can run or ride beside us until we have another milestone to overcome.
No matter how hard things get, no matter how scary or wobbly things are remember this: KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE PEDDLES!
