Out of the Blue

I injured my leg today. Or, more accurately, I realised today that I have injured my leg. I'm fairly sure that the initial damage was done as I was pelting down a mini mountain, running from one shoot to another. After so many years of neglecting to climb 'The Mount', running down it with a heavy tripod was possibly not a wise idea. I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary though, aside from perhaps the slightest of twinges. Then came Thursday with the busted tire and a whole lot of walking. Still nothing. Friday I decided to go easy on myself and didn't run my 5 km as usual. The weekend too was fine, although looking back I can remember once or twice I felt some very minor discomfort in my right leg. Which brings us up to this morning. Up out of bed, check emails, blogs and fansites, then dress and out the door for exercise. I noticed a bit of pain towards the end of press-ups, but that's not wildly unusual. So I began my run. At the beginning I knew something was a bit off, but hey, if you stop your run for every niggle you'll never go, right? Half way through though things were different. The pain had become pronounced and I was starting to wonder how far I'd get before I had to slow to a walk. I didn't have to wonder long; a few minutes later I was walking (shuffle-limping might be a better way to describe it), and still at least 2 km from home. It was quite painful, but not agonising - you know the type? Anyway, I got home (late, obviously) and began the day. And realised that I really had mucked the old knee up quite thoroughly. It's fine at times, but when I've let it sit bent for a while (something I try to avoid now) it's agony to use it again. I'm sure it will heal itself up given rest and a couple of days - but it was surprising how it came out of the blue this morning. At the time it seemed to pop out of nowhere, for no reason at all. Only afterwards when I sat down and thought it out, did I realise that there was a (portentous, had I but noticed) series of events leading up to the 'out of the blue' incident.

Things rarely do spring up 'out of the blue'. Almost always there's a trend or pattern leading up to them that, had anyone been watching, would have indicated the final outcome rather clearly. But we're not watching. After all, we can't watch everything. No matter how hard you try, you can't get hindsight until the fat lady sings. A fact which has annoyed many generals, politicians and boyfriends down the ages. We can at least though be a little less astonished when a person turns around and does something totally 'out of character'. We're not actually very good judges at what is in or out of character for any given person. We are not in possession of all the facts. It's hard enough for me to predict what I'm going to do a few months down the line - should we be so arrogant as to assume that we really have someone else pinned? They were such a nice person - how could they have done something like this? First off, there's not many nice people in the world. I'm certainly not one of them. I (and many others) are in the category of nice bits mixed up with some quite nasty bits. And secondly - how on earth would you know if they were nice or not; callously prepared to do 'something like this' or comparatively innocent? There's the other side of the coin too - how many people have become evil largely because everyone assumed that they were?

Maybe we need to notice the ones close to us a little bit more - and think past the surface. But it's a dangerous game to play clairvoyant. We cannot treat people differently because of things they may do. Just don't be shocked when I let you down. Love Man. Trust God.