The radio played a familiar tune as I turned onto our dirt road. At the usual deer crossing zone, I slowed down and made sure none of them were going to attempt a game of chicken at the last minute. Then I pulled up to the mailbox, grabbed the few sales papers and bills, and drove toward the house.

As I topped the hill, I noticed a low branch moving on a tree. Then I saw the vine shake that hung across the higher limb. Then I watched as a squirrel jumped with all his gusto, missed the other branch, and went KEKLUNK under my front tire.

Everything happened so fast I had to look in my rearview mirror and see the flattened squirrel to process the event I had just witnessed. Aren’t squirrels supposed to leap and land on something solid? What kind of squirrel misses like that? And boy, what bad luck!

Made me think about how long it takes for many of us to finally make a decision. We think through every step, carefully calculate all the variables, and step out on the low branch of the tree. We jump and land on the higher branch, knowing the next leap will be huge. It’s terrifying. But we tell ourselves it will be totally worth it.

And then KEKLUNK! We are plowed over, and all our hard work is dashed. Failure and defeat loom over us like a dark cloud and we don’t understand why everything didn’t work out. Man, it’s tough being that squirrel. After all the hours. Tons of thought. Months of effort. We are smashed.

Unlike the squirrel, though, we have the chance to get up and try again. We don’t have to stay in a wadded up, defeated puddle in the middle of the road—we have a choice. Quitting never solves anything. So, after the concussion wears off, we dust off our clothes, pull our big girl or big boy breeches up, and we get back in the game again. And again. And again.

Maybe we fall and KEKLUNK again. But maybe, just maybe, we reach the other branch and make the impossible possible.

We can learn a lot from this clumsy squirrel. And we can learn a lot from not giving up when everything seems too hard. Try again. You will never know a different ending until you do.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.         Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.   1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV)