Water skiing is (normally, except when I am the one holding the handle) a surface water sport and a great recreational activity.  The only equipment you need is skis, some rope with a handle at one end, a fast boat, and a life jacket.  Here is how it works; first you take the fast boat, preferably one not designed to break the sound barrier, tie your rope with a handle to the boat, place your life jacket securely around your body, place your feet into the skis, and then hang on.

          My brother David, with his hand on the throttle, loves to shout, all you have to do is hang on and follow me, just before he attempts to jerk you out of the water and sling you across the Tennessee River.  The photograph is of C. J. Richards in one of his first attempts at hanging on to the rope being pulled behind the speeding boat and at the same time keeping this a surface water sport.

          As you can tell from this photograph, gravity and momentum are about to teach C. J. a lesson in physics.  The good news is just before he was introduced to the mighty Tennessee River, he chose to release his grip on the rope.  This allowed C. J. to prepare for a graceful dismount as he reentered the earth’s atmosphere.  The worst thing you can do is attempt to hang on to the rope when you are falling.

          As in water skiing and life, we are all going to fall.  Perhaps we are trying to hang on to something or somebody that is pulling us down and not worth sticking to (hatred, jealousy, drugs, bad influences, you fill in the blank _____).  And if we continue to hang on, usually when we least expect it we are introduced to gravity, momentum and a large unmovable object.

          What are we going to do then?  Do we hang on to the things that are pulling us down, or are we going to let them go?  Possibly, you find yourself floating in the water today after a great fall?  You feel like a failure and fear you will not have the strength to get back up; the good news is, you can get back up!  You can choose to let go of the negative and embrace the positive and begin again.  You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.

Something to think about:

• If we try to resist loss and change or to hold on to blessings and joy belonging to a past which must drop away from us, we postpone all the new blessings awaiting us on a higher level and find ourselves left in a barren, bleak winter of sorrow and loneliness.

• Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

• A failure is not someone who has tried and failed; it is someone who has given up trying and resigned himself to failure; it is not a condition, but an attitude.

• If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Rickey Moore