10 stupid choices and 1 smart one

I read somewhere people like blogs with lists and that made me laugh so naturally I'm doing it. Lists don't have to have a point so I should be good at this.

10 Stupid Choices in no particular order :
(Stupid is normally a bad word in our house, but I love the etymology of it. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French stupide or Latin stupidus, from stupere ‘be amazed or stunned.)

1. Sleeping with my head covered. I'm not sure it's a choice; it's my DNA. I have to sleep with my head covered and my feet out. I take a specially made cozy everywhere I go so I don't have to put creepy hotel covers over my face and I have a hole for my feet. I think the lack of oxygen explains a lot in my life. 
2. Making out on a red-eye flight because I was bored. Who knew he would be a stalker? Luckily, I was quick enough to tell him that Angoon had met its quota of white people and he would have to wait for someone to leave before he could visit. I've never been a good liar.
3. Being too lazy to get my keys out of the house and instead putting my car into neutral and pushing it out of the garage. This wouldn't have been that bad of an idea if the driveway wasn't sloped and curved. Imagine me holding onto the seatbelt trying to slow the vehicle down. Now imagine it crashing into the basketball pole at the curve in the driveway. That was fun to explain.
4. Getting into the backseat of a car with chopsticks in my mouth. Yep, I still have the perfectly round scar on my soft palate. Nothing is more entertaining for ER nurses than lots of blood and a good story.
5. Tubing a flooded river at midnight with the organic gardener. This one could have ended really poorly. It was a long four hours and if you've never ridden rushing water through barbed wire and a herd of cows drinking, then you aren't stupid. 
6. Wandering the streets of Atlanta alone, lost and without any money at night. Also one of those moments when I stopped and realized it could turn out badly. That's the night I was saved by my drunk guardian angel who had a gallery opening for painted toilet seats in inner city Atlanta and no one showed up. Except for me, standing on the sidewalk praying.
7. Ten is too many, this list has grown tedious. All other stories are derivatives of alcohol or men motifs.

One smart choice that I'm not even sure is a choice. 

I get to live my life in grace. I get to live my life in the freedom to make mistakes and own up to them. My family, friends, and church community always surrounded me with a sense of being loved. It didn't mean they shielded me from consequences of stupid choices, but they supported and walked with me through them. Grace doesn't make consequences goes away, but it doesn't abandon us to face them alone.

There have been times that they've also graciously given me a heads up that something is destructive or unhealthy. Sometimes I even listened.

I suppose that's what I hope for my kids and even the church community. I want them to be surrounded with enough grace so they can make some stupid choices and experience failure and pain. 

Obviously, I don't want the choices to destroy their lives. I'm not advocating recklessness, but I don't want to protect and frighten them to the point that they have no good stories. Those life experiences that amaze or stun us are often the experiences that make for rich lives and build us into the resilient characters we are today. 

Next week, top ten uses for edamame. Not really, I just love saying that word.