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(Yes, I ended my title with a preposition. No, I don’t really care about grammar rules like that)

Sometimes, I feel like there are two versions of me that people meet. Rachel Coker, author. And Rachel Coker, seventeen-year-old girl. And sometimes they forget that I am both people at the same time. That I’m definitely not the seemingly perfect, put-together, organized chick that my blog seems to have fooled you into believing I am. (I mean–organized??? Really??? Me???) And sometimes it almost hurts me to realize that it shocks people when I make mistakes. When I fall on my face or make a typo or fumble around to find the right words to express how I’m feeling.

Hello, America. I’m seventeen. I’m so far from having it all together, that it’s not even funny. But with God as my strength, I’m trying every day to just get a little bit closer to my goal of being as close to Him as possible.

I had a funny story to tell, though. I was thinking about this the other day, and I couldn’t resist sharing. Have I ever told you all about how I learned to ride a bike? I was fourteen years old. That’s right. Fourteen. Four mortifyingly short summers ago.

I was a pretty fearful person growing up. I mean, I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind or to meet new people or to even strut around on stage with some kind of crazy costume on. But I was afraid of heights. And I was afraid badly. (Okay, that’s terrible grammar. I just can’t think of a better way to describe how badly I was afraid! Plus, this is kinda an off day for me, grammar-police wise�)

Anyway, I have no idea what it was about bikes that got my heart pounding, but something about being suspended so high off the ground with two rolling wheels under me and a downward slope before me just really got me going. I wouldn’t even try riding a bike or letting myself fall. The mere thought of my body hurtling to the ground below me at a speed of fifteen miles an hour evoked sheer terror in my heart.

So for years, I avoided bikes. I told people I just wasn’t interested in athletics and convinced myself that there would never come an occasion where I’d have to literally bike for my life, so I’d be good.

But then my younger sister learned how to ride a bike. And then my even younger sister (by seven years!) learned how to ride a bike. And I got a little bit embarrassed. Because they were riding circles around me with their cute Barbie helmets and pink brakes, and I was just an awkwardly tall, unathletic girl who couldn’t ride without training wheels.

So I consented to learn how to ride a bike. And I crashed into a brick wall an hour into my first day of bike riding. Maybe I was getting too cocky after going a whole fifty minutes without falling (I was five-foot-seven and on a middle-schooler’s bike. My feet could touch the ground for Pete’s sake) but something drove me to dare my younger sister to race around our church on my newly acquired wheels. I guess I was trying to blot out the years of embarrassment in a mere fifty minutes.

Whatever the case, all I did was glance over my shoulder to yell, “So long, sucka!� and bam. I hit the brick wall. And promptly fell off my bike.

So there. I’m not good at everything. I’m actually a kind of pathetic bike rider. To this day, it doesn’t come easily to me. But you know what? That’s okay. I’m not always going to be great at everything, and neither are you! The joy in life comes from learning what God has gifted us with, and figuring out how to glorify Him through those gifts. I’m a writer, and a photographer, and a generally nice and funny person and I like telling people about Jesus and my life. And that’s okay! I can fail at biking–at volleyball–at geometry–at sign language–and still be a pretty happy girl.

-Rachel

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