Elastic Collisions

In physics there are elastic and inelastic collisions. A good example of an elastic collision is dropping a rubber ball - when the ball hits the ground, almost all of its momentum, or the energy it built up as it was falling and picking up speed, is conserved but simply redirected upwards so that the ball bounces back up almost as high as you dropped it. Now, imagine instead of dropping a rubber ball, you drop an overripe tomato. This would be an example of an inelastic collision. Instead of conserving all of that built up energy and bouncing the tomato back up, that energy instead gets transferred into the tomato, causing its structural integrity to collapse and making rather a mess. We live in a fallen world and despite our best efforts, we will be dragged down again and again by sin and personal weakness and tragedy. We can't choose never to make mistakes, but what we can do is choose what kind of collision we make when we hit the bottom. We can bounce back up like a rubber ball or splat like a tomato and make a big mess. Developing a habit of sincere and consistent and rapid repentance can minimize our time spent at the bottom and also minimize the energy that gets directed inward to destroy our peace and our sanity, and also maximize the amount of time we spend rising up towards heaven. If we try to pretend that we're not falling, then we won't be prepared to make that elastic collision and we'll splatter ourselves against the hard rock of misery and despair. It's much better to recognize our mistake and bounce right back up in the direction we want to be headed. We may wish we were a beautiful Faberge egg, perfect in every way, instead of an unremarkable rubber ball, but the rubber ball is going to keep bouncing back up and stay in the air much longer than the Faberge egg that's going to shatter on impact and never rise again.