My two brothers and I visited our cousin this weekend and decided to stay at a hotel together. Well, we booked separate rooms because I’d rather camp on gravel during a hailstorm than share a room with my brothers. So, together is a relative term, I suppose. I guess it is more accurate to say we stayed in a hotel.
One of my brothers brought his son, my sweet seven-year-old nephew along. Also in-tow was my nephew's trusty scooter, which he parked in the hotel room at night for safe-keeping. Fast forward to the middle of the night. My brother, half-asleep and probably thinking he was still at home, got up to use the bathroom and he tripped over the scooter and, in his words, bit it hard.
The next morning at breakfast, he repeated the story to the two of us siblings, “It was bad. I looked down and was sure my leg was gushing blood.”
These things happen to him all of the time, and he usually finds them funny and as he tells us about his latest adventure gone wrong. Bicycle injures. Falling down stairs. You name it, he's done it.
Now, this brother is the baby of the family, so naturally, his other two siblings demanded a medical review before offering any sympathy.
“Let’s see the leg,” we said.
He pulled up his pant leg with dramatic flair and revealed a scrape. Not a wound. A scrape.
“We don’t see anything,” we said.
“I know there’s not anything there,” he insisted, “but it was hurting bad. I couldn’t fall back asleep for like, forty-five minutes.”
My brother and I smiled at him, and eventually, he said “I think my pain tolerance is going down. That shouldn't have hurt so bad.”
“A sign of growing older,” we said. Then we offered to get him a Life Alert in case he falls in the middle of the night again, along with a helmet and knee pads.
As entertaining as this story is, at least to the two of us who didn’t fall over a scooter, I can’t help but think about how often we all trip over things in our daily lives that shouldn’t hurt as much as they do.
Maybe it’s a passing comment that lands a little too hard. A moment of rejection that feels bigger than it ought to. Someone’s tone, a glance, or a word that wasn’t meant to wound but somehow does. It’s strange, isn’t it? How something small can strike a nerve so deep, it feels like we should be gushing blood, when in reality it is just a scrape.
Maybe after all we've been through in life, one of the end results is our tolerance isn’t what it used to be—not for pain, not for criticism, and especially not for scooters in the dark.
The Unexpected Weight of Little Things
A quick word that stings. A glance that feels like rejection. The silence of being overlooked. These are the scooter-in-the-dark moments of life, the ones that don’t seem worthy of grief, but still manage to steal our peace. We trip, lose our footing, and wonder why it hurt more than it should.
But here’s the truth: God cares about all of it. He doesn’t wait for our hearts to break wide open before He draws near. Even the tiniest moments of pain matter to Him.
Scripture reminds us, “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Not just the big, dramatic heartaches, but the subtle, quiet ones too. The emotional paper cuts we carry around. The things we’re tempted to dismiss because they don’t feel “serious enough.” But, God reminds us we don’t have to bleed to ask for healing.
Not long after my divorce, I had lunch with some friends at a beautiful golf course. The view was stunning with rolling greens, birds chirping, and perfect weather. We sat at an outdoor table, enjoying good food and friendly conversation and I was having a wonderful time.
Then, in the middle of that tranquil moment, the friend across from me smiled and said, “I’d love to introduce you to a friend of mine. She’s divorced too and I thought maybe you two could hang out.”
It was innocent enough, I suppose. But the words hit a nerve.
Why is it that because I’m divorced, I need to be paired off with someone else who’s also divorced? Like we're part of a sad little club we never asked to join. I wasn’t looking for new friends. I didn’t want to be someone's charity project or the token “divorced lady” in someone’s social circle. And honestly, I hated the label.
A small comment, said with kindness, but it felt like a punch to the gut. Like a tiny scrape that suddenly throbbed as if it were gushing blood. I smiled politely and let the conversation move along, but the joy of that beautiful afternoon had slipped away. It’s strange how something so little can cast such a long shadow. One sentence, and suddenly I was reminded of all the things I didn’t want to feel. Lonely, different, labeled, wounded.
God sees what’s beneath the surface. He knows when something small hits a tender place. And He never shames us for being human, for feeling deeply, or for coming to Him with what others might call “too small.” In fact, those are often the places where His gentleness meets us most sweetly.
So if you’ve tripped over something lately, a sharp word, a disappointment, a moment that hurt more than expected, bring it to Him. No pain is too petty for the Savior who numbers the hairs on your head and bottles your every tear.
Even scraped knees matter to a God who stoops low to bandage hearts.
Guarding the Path
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” – Proverbs 4:23It was just a scooter. A harmless little thing left out on the floor. But in the middle of the night, in a dark hotel room, it became a tripwire. My brother found it the hard way, by moving full speed right into it and tumbling into the kind of pain that kept him from sleeping. And yet, isn’t that so often how life works?
It’s the small things left unattended like quiet resentments, lingering disappointments, or old insecurities that sit like forgotten scooters in the hallways of our hearts. It doesn't take long for a tiny issue becomes a whole lot bigger when we've already lost our tolerance. A scrape feels like a wound. A momentary offense feels like betrayal. The emotional reaction far outweighs the actual trigger.
It wasn’t the offer to meet a new friend that got under my skin that day on the golf course. In hindsight, it probably came from a kind place. Maybe the other woman was feeling isolated, and they thought I could come alongside her.
But in that moment, I didn’t see compassion. I felt categorized. And I bristled.
And the truth is, my reaction was immature. Ridiculous, even. But it was real. Because that comment touched a tender place I hadn’t dealt with yet. The pain wasn’t really about that lunch or that day or that woman I didn’t know. I might have tripped over the scooter in the moment, but the wound happened years ago.
That moment simply revealed I hadn’t healed as much as I thought it had.
That’s why Scripture tells us to guard our hearts above all else. Not because we’re fragile, but because we’re human. Everything we do, everything we say, every relationship we hold all flows from the condition of our hearts. And when we don’t tend to the clutter, it builds up. The heart becomes a tripping hazard zone.
Guarding our hearts doesn’t mean walling ourselves off or living in fear of being hurt. It means paying attention to what’s building up inside. It means asking God to reveal the things we’ve shoved to the corners. The quiet anger. The buried fear. The old grief that still stings. It means clearing the path, not just for ourselves, but for the people who walk through life with us.
Jesus doesn’t just want us to keep going—He wants us to walk in freedom. And sometimes freedom starts with a spiritual decluttering. Laying things down. Forgiving again. Choosing peace over pride. Asking the Holy Spirit to sweep the floor of our souls.
So today, take a look around the hallway of your heart. What have you left out in the open? What have you stepped over one too many times, hoping it won’t trip you again?
Invite God in. Let Him help you guard the path. Because scraped hearts take longer to heal than scraped knees.
God doesn’t categorize us or reduce us to the chapters of our story we didn’t choose. Divorce, heartbreak, loss—these are real, painful parts of life, but they are not our names. They are not our identities. They are not how Heaven sees us.
Scripture tells us, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Not just when we fall apart—but also when we quietly carry the weight of things we’ve never fully grieved.
The world might see a label. God sees a daughter.
He sees beyond the surface, beyond what people say or what we try to pretend doesn’t bother us. He knows where the real wounds are. And He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t rush us. He simply invites us to bring those places into the light so He can begin to heal what we’ve been tripping over in the dark.
So if you’ve been walking through life trying to step over an old wound, pretending it doesn’t still sting—know this: God’s not calling you “divorced” or “damaged” or “other.” He’s calling you His. Whole. Redeemed. Loved beyond measure.
The world may put you in a category. But God calls you by name.
We’re Not Meant to Be Perfect
Yes, we trip over small things. Yes, our emotions sometimes flare over moments that shouldn’t shake us as much as they do. But here’s the truth: God never expected us to be flawless. If that were the case, we wouldn't need Jesus.
Take Martha, my Type-A soul sister, for example.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was simply trying to be a good host. She was setting the table, managing the kitchen, keeping everything in order while Jesus, the Messiah, was sitting in her living room. Her sister Mary, meanwhile, sat at His feet, listening, resting, being still.
And it grated on Martha’s nerves.
Eventually, she snapped. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40).
It wasn’t a dramatic fall from grace. It was a small moment of irritation, frustration, feeling unseen. But it revealed something deeper stirring in her heart.
Jesus didn’t scold her. He didn’t say, “You should be better than this.” Instead, He gently said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.”
Martha tripped over the small stuff, like many of us do. And Jesus met her right there, in her distraction and frustration, and pointed her back to what mattered: being with Him. Not being perfect. Not keeping it all together.
And that’s the heart of it. We don’t have to get every moment right. We just need to bring our hearts, our scraped knees, our cluttered emotions, our tangled motives, all back to Him.
He’s not measuring our performance. He’s inviting us into presence.
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