It has taken me fifty plus years to see it, although it was obvious to my childhood friends and family.  I never saw it in myself, but it’s true.  I was a bonafide, scaredy-cat kid.  I was overly cautious, super careful, and hesitant to take risks– at least about things that might cause bodily injury and pain.

I wasn’t hesitant to open my mouth, that’s for sure.  And I never had stage fright.  But when it came to the prospect of bodily peril, I was out.  Saying no was no problem when there was even the smell of a hazard.  It was more than just the regular childhood fears– like fearing the dark, fearing shots, fearing the dentist, etc.  Mine were fears that became major hinderances.  My fears probably kept me out of trouble in some respects, but placed unnecessary roadblocks into my life as a whole.  It was a miserable place to be, and I didn’t even recognize it.  For instance……

….it took me forever to learn to swim.  Thanks to four years of swimming lessons and Mrs. Ann Hardegree pushing me off the boat dock into Lake Martin, I finally learned.  And I became good at it after that.  Never a problem with water again.  (See my blog post, “The Lady of the Lake”)

And there was roller skating, which appeared to me to be a useless risk to my tail bone.  I would never have learned to roller skate had it not been for my fifth grade classmates, Donald and Dwight.  They invited me to a birthday party at the abandoned Little Heflin School building which had become a makeshift skating rink.  It had such great wooden oil floors and long halls.  Working together, repeatedly and patiently, they held me up and rolled me around like a scarecrow on wheels until I could get the hang of it.  I was probably the last guy in my fifth-grade class to learn, but I ended up learning to roller skate quite well.  I even ice skated a bit in college.  Thanks Harris twins!

I was afraid to climb ladders; afraid of heights.  Dad used to order me to get on the roof our house to clean the gutters a couple of times a year, and I almost had a nervous breakdown every time!  Our house was not a house with a steep roof.  In fact, it was a one-level ranch style house that barely had any roof pitch at all.  I could make my way onto the roof, but getting off was a different story.  It might as well have been the Empire State Building– looking like a bottomless pit down below whenever I was about to crawl onto the ladder to descend.  At age 14, I had to get my cousin Duane to get me off the roof.  I was sure that ladder wouldn’t hold me and I would certainly plunge to my death.  How embarrassing.  I’m much better now, but heights still are not my cup o’tea.

My cousin Robert was the outdoorsman among us– an expert critter catcher– never afraid to pick up bugs, spiders, mice, lizards, and even snakes.  Snakes!  Whew.  That was not even negotiable for me.  Poisonous or not, Robert would grab a snake by the head and scare the liver out of anybody just for fun.  In fairness to me, I wasn’t the only one who drew the line at reptiles.  But it was just one more on an long list of potential hazards I made every excuse to avoid.

Outside of my fear of deep water was my fear of giving up my bicycle training wheels.  I had been an excellent tricycler, and had since mastered riding a four-wheeled bicycle as well.  Thank the Lord for training wheels!  Like training pants, it was something I was prepared to live with forever.  As long as I could graduate to a larger bike with larger training wheels, I was fine.  Hey, what are whitey-tighties but training pants for grown-ups?

My parents refused to get me a new bike as long as I depended on training wheels.  Dad took me into the backyard regularly to teach me to ride my bike without them, but I balked every time. “Daddy, I can’t.  I can’t keep my balance.”  He got so tired of taking the wheels off to train me, and then putting them back on when I failed to learn, that he finally threw them in the garbage can.  “That’ll teach him,” he thought.  But it didn’t.  I just quit riding my bike.

Day after day that summer Dad forced me into the backyard to try again.  A soft, downward grassy slope in the backyard appeared like a plunge off the white cliffs of Dover to me as Dad tried to coax me into gliding down the slope.  He ran behind me holding on to my bike over and over, until he was out of breath.  But stubbornly fearful, I refused to try it alone.

A couple of times he tricked me, letting go of the bike while promising to hold it.  But whenever I looked backward and saw that he wasn’t holding on, I freaked out and wrecked every time.  I quit trusting him.  Poor Dad.  Poor me.  We were both basket cases.

Finally Dad reached his breaking point, ordering me to sit down and quit crying.  Then he called my brother, Mike, to stop what he was doing and ride his bike around the back yard.

“Mark, don’t you dare take your eyes off of him!” Dad barked.  Then he commanded Mike to ride all around me and not quit until I was willing to ride without training wheels!  At that point, Dad went inside.

Mike was none too happy with me.  Each time he rode near me he issued threats and berated my stubbornness.  Eventually, I got as mad as a hornet, jumped up, and walked my little two-wheeled bike to the top of the slope.  Mike suddenly got sweet and offered to help me.  Within a few minutes I was gliding down the hill alone– proud as a peacock.  Dad and Mom came out and cheered me, and praised Mike for his role.  I never looked back.  For many years to come riding a bike was part of my daily life.

When caution becomes fear, it is a terrible thing.  I am so thankful that my loving family helped me overcome most of those childhood fears, giving me a wide path to move forward in life.  Without the small victories, the big ones would never be possible.  But because of their godly examples to me in my childhood, my parents, family, and loving friends became the true training wheels of life– examples that continue to train me in my latter years– training wheels that never have to be discarded– ones that were never meant to be roadblocks in the first place– ones that I can cherish forever.

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”  Deuteronomy 6:6-7