This Playground

We're all children on this broken playground. Swings with no seats, monkey-bars with no bars, broken glass littered about: yet it's all we know and so With stubbed toes and wounded hearts we beg to be picked Hoping this time we won't be last or forgotten altogether (unless its dodgeball, I stink at dodgeball) Maybe this time we'll be picked early and not have to fret...then again, maybe we won't. We desperately desire to be chosen and not neglected or abandoned. Sometimes we are so afraid we try to form our own team and in so doing further the chances if us not being selected. Or we tell ourselves we didn't want To get picked in the first place, feigning righteous indignation and aloofness. We try to find a game we can win, not realizing the playground bully has every game rigged designed to make us want to give up. And if we do, by chance, do well then we are castigated, subjugated, and humiliated till we rep back into our "rightful" places. Sometimes though, there are some that seem to play their own game and they have fun. It's almost foreign to us, the sound of fun. But like an entranced sailor we draw towards the sound of the sirens...only it's not a siren. It's hope. Hope that there's more than this broken playground. Hope that there is reprieve from the bully that kicks sand at us and throws rocks. Hope that our flaws somehow won't cause us to never be picked. Hope. Hope that the playground is truly open to all. Hope. It draws, propels compels, motivates, captivates, encourages, inspires, scares, builds us into something more. So in line I will stand, confident in this hope You give me. I'm going to fall and skin my knees. I'm going to miss a layup. It's guaranteed. No doubt I'll strike out. But with chin held high I’ll try again and again knowing You've picked me, not because I'm good, but because You designed me to play as I do and You've given me freedom to play. To Jump. To Run. To Skip. Arms out wind on my face running free. Maybe this playground isn't so bad after all...