Dip-dee-dos

Every once in a while, you're going to have to skip through those dip-dee-dos you encounter in life.

Last week, my mom and I went on a hike on a walking/biking trail near a lake while my dad biked. As we got closer to the end, my mom kept mentioning some dip-dee-dos that we were approaching. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about at first, so I just nodded and kept walking. (Bless her heart—my mom is precious, so I just let her make up her own words and go right along with it.) I mean, she was just trying to warn me about these miniature hills (if you can even call them that) that we would soon encounter, but I kinda just liked the fact that there was now something called a "dip-dee-do" out in the woods. Seemed exciting.

Then they appeared.

Dip-dee-dos

I almost had to laugh at all of my mother's admonitions. She had cautioned me multiple times about the dip-dee-dos, and they were really nothing more than little rolls and baby bunkers in the ground that were actually kind of fun. I intentionally picked up my speed and ran up and down them just to spice things up a bit. I suppose you might have to use more attentiveness if you were riding your bike over these things, but even then it wouldn't be that intimidating. Well, unless you were an ant, perhaps.

I think we treat many things in life similar to the expectations of the dip-dee-dos. We tend to make big deals out of things that really become rather anticlimactic—after all, the world didn't end a few weeks ago. We allow certain caveats from others or from our own crazy imaginations to get in the way of enjoying life as best we can. If my mom and I had tip-toed through the dip-dee-dos, I'm pretty sure it would have been one of the lamest walks those particular trails had ever seen. But, rushing through them added more entertainment and even brought in somewhat of the "stay forever young" advice that Rod Stewart once advised us all to do.

There are certainly dip-dee-dos in life that are larger than the ones we faced on the trails last week, but I think those have to be faced with the same fearless attitude. The more we look at mounds and hills as mountains we have to scale, the larger and more painful they are going to seem. And, even when we are up against peaks that seem like they are infinite heights, we have a God who is there to help us scale them—those things are even less than trail dip-dee-dos to Him.

Conquered them.

One significant fact about the dip-dee-dos is that they were essential for us to go through to get to where we needed to go. They were on our designated path, and the only logical option we had (besides attempting to create our own path and likely getting lost) was to tackle them head-on without any worry. That's what you have to do when you face situations that aren't exactly smooth surfaces: put on your soldier helmet and embrace the challenge of whatever stands in your way of making it to your final destination.

The dip-dee-dos are inevitably going to pop up along our paths, but we simply have to trust that we're strong enough to run through them like when you were a kid running through the sprinklers: fearlessly and with spirits of innocence and vigor.