For My Bike

I'm a pretty forgetful guy. Since I've come to UCD, I've lost two pairs of sunglasses, two of my favorite hats, two ATM cards, and countless pens. This morning while I was in class, I realized that my time for choosing classes started at 10:30, and it was 10:50. (I ran out to the computer lab and got all my classes.) When I was a junior in high school, I drove off with my CD collection on the roof of my car. (It wasn't there when I got home.) I went to LA to visit friends and I left my favorite nalgene bottle at Trevor's house. I don't mean for this to be some kind of sob story - I think it's funny. If I wanted to sound like less of a goober, I might say that I'm "winsome." Last week, however, I lost something that I'm just beginning to mourn.

When people come to visit Davis, there is one thing that everyone notices first: the bikes. they're everywhere. Everyone has one. The campus is so big and flat that the bike is the easiest and most prevalent form of transportation. And so when I got into Davis, one of the first things on my dad's to-do list was to get me a bike. And one day, there it was: a beat-up, chipped-up, one-speed candy-apple red cruiser bike. My dad wanted soething for me that wouldn't require a lot of maintenance, had fenders, and that would last me. It was a good deal too: free from my uncle, who never rode it. And so on the day I moved into the dorms, he rolled that cruiser into the bike rack, unloaded my things, helped me set up my room, and drove off.

I rode that bike everywhere. I rode it to class every day, I rode across town to visit my uncle, I rode it home late at night from my Christian fellowship, I rode it to Starbucks to meet with friends. I rode it with no hands most of the time, and sometimes I would close my eyes while riding late at night, and it sort of felt like I was flying.

Last week, I came out of class and the back tube on my bike had popped. So I left it there, locked to itself, with the intent of coming by later to pick it up with my car or to roll it over to the UCD Bike Barn to get a replacement tube. A few days went by, and I hadn't made the time to pick it up and fix the tire. This past monday, I walked by where I had left my bike, and it wasn't there. Gone. I felt violated, like someone had just stuck a stick into my life and scrambled things all around.

I know that it's just a hunk of metal and rubber, and it's probably either repainted in some stranger's house or in a dumpster somewhere. I'm not bummed about now having to walk to class; I'm sad because that beat-up old bike reminded me of so many things: my dad, college, fragments of moments and dim memories that would spring into my mind in completion when I rode it. Memories that I never wanted to forget, but will now be ground slowly underneath the wheel of time. I know that no treasure stored up in this world will last, but in looking around in my room at my little collection of knick-knacks, I don't see stuff; I see memories. I see promises. Wooden cups, little rocks, a toy boat, postcards, photos - dirty little lumps of this world that remind me of eternity. They are my ebenezers: I see them, and I remember. And for a broken, forgetful person like me, memory is important.

My bike is now gone, stolen. But that thief didn't just get an old bike; he got a piece of me too. There'll be a time when I won't need bikes and rocks and wooden cups to remember, but I think I'm going to in this world for a little bit longer yet. I am thankful for the little things, for as long as I have them. The past becomes the present, my heart swells, and the kingdom of Heaven draws near. My bike may be gone, but I know that no thief can steal me away from the arms of my GOD. Thank you, Lord - thanks for the memories.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." (1 Samuel 7:12)

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-29)