All That Holds Us Together

Franklin, my youngest son, worked on Saturday at his job at the city owned/managed public swimming pool. He is one of the aids. He usually goes to the top of the slide and grants passage to the meager patrons who have climbed the two flights of stairs so they can go down the slide and splash in the cool, refreshing waters. Oh, and he has a whistle. That’s just entirely too much power for a 15-year-old. Haha. Anyway, Saturday, I drove him over to the pool. Then about 30 minutes later he texted to ask me if I could bring him an iced tea to drink. Of course, I did. I stopped what I was doing and took it to him as it was 103 degrees. I got home and started back into what I had going on here. I got a second text about 30 minutes later asking me if I could “bring him his wallet for something from concession for his break pretty please?” My reply was, “buddyyyyyyy….” His reply was, “I NEEEEEEEED it.” So I grumbled a bit, but I grabbed his wallet out of his room and got into my roasting car with it’s scorching leather seats and drove it over to him. As I was driving over that third time, I stopped complaining. I started thinking about my own plight over the last couple weeks. It looks like this: I cannot find my brand of hairspray anywhere. I have tasked Wade with the mission of finding it. He has looked at WalMart, Safeway, Walgreens, and Dollar General to name a few. And I have looked in those stores and other stores several times also. It was getting frustrating. He, in his wonderful, awesome provision and kindness, brought some Aussie Sprunch to use as I was nearly out of my Tresemme (ooooo-la-la) so I would have something. I tried not to complain as it was kind of him to do that much for me. But I did ask him to please keep looking because this current hair spray is horrendous! He kept saying he didn’t quite understand why I wanted THAT specific brand. I told him I didn’t just “want” it. No, it was beyond that. I told him, “I NEEEEEEEED it.” And of course, because my mind is weird, I started thinking about some of the other things in life I feel I absolutely need. In my thinking, I concluded that a woman is only as strong as the coffee she drinks, the hairspray she uses, and the hope that she keeps in her heart. I am sure I have read some of that, especially about the coffee, somewhere. I don’t think that part is original to me. But I did some deep thinking on all of it and what coffee, hairspray and hope could mean to our lives.

For starters, hairspray with a hairdo like mine is needed. Not wanted, not suggested. But I thought about how much hairspray can represent the friendships we have. The best of friends are strong enough to hold you together when you would otherwise be coming apart at the seams yet gentle enough to let you move with the breeze. They can take a good thing and make it better. They accentuate the good qualities and help to hide your flaws. Like your biggest flaws. When you have a tendency to have a stray moment, you can apply friendship and it will put you immediately and firmly back in place. It’s sticky, hairspray. And you can smell the fragrance it leaves on your hair all day. In the same way, your friends aren’t going anywhere and you will often think of them throughout your day even if you don’t stop to acknowledge them. You just know they are there, doing their job as your friend. They can both tame the static and they keep the hair, or all of life’s crap, out of your face. They show off your best features. Hairspray, I mean a good friend, has a way of complimenting your best and covering up the rest. Our lives are enhanced by all of it. And just like the real Tresemme I use, you will be able to spot the “fake” or substitute hairspray, I mean people charading as friends, every time. Just as the hairspray did in my hair, they will weigh you down, leave you in tangles and be nearly impossible to remove without an expensive shampoo and lots of effort!

Coffee. That is all I really need to write about that, probably. Or, maybe I could say it just one more time. Coffee. There. No, just kidding. In all reality, I couldn’t adult well, work well, wife, mother, or daughter well without coffee. It is a powerful part of my day. And thinking about what coffee could represent I came up with my “why.” What is it that drives us? Because that is what coffee is to me. It drives me, some days, physically.  When I start doubting myself and my ability or my goals or my position in life I think about my why. And my why gets me over those inevitable hurdles. I have thought about making the decision to come home and work for myself and whether or not it was a good decision. Not because I am second guessing but more because I miss people and I am not nearly as worn out from working as hard and isn’t that what’s supposed to happen according to our world when we are in our 40’s? I have doubted my weight loss and the ability to get to where I want to be at the rate of ONE POUND A WEEK. But, I always come back to my why. That is the shot of coffee that I need to continue driving into my goals. We have very little chance of being successful at what we are doing if we don’t know why we are doing it. Or we haven’t got a leg to stand on if we don’t know why we believe what we believe. And sometimes, just knowing our why can get us through the “fog” of our days. Just like a hot, steaming, cup of black coffee can pull us through a sluggish afternoon.

We can have all the coffee and hairspray in the world, but if we don’t have hope? What good will it do us? On a small scale, I hope that the hairspray I use will lead to a good hair day. And I hope that the coffee I drink will curb my appetite as it usually does because it’s a healthy weight loss coffee and that is what it’s supposed to do. Beyond that small scale, though, is the theme that the Bible so beautifully conveys. Hope is the thought that something good you desire MAY eventually have a chance to happen. Somewhere, sometime, somehow. I have heard it said that hope comes after faith. That you have to have faith before you have hope. Now, I am not an expert and don’t know a lot about a lot, but I am actually more bent to believe hope has to happen BEFORE faith can take root. It’s a little like the chicken and the egg conversation in regards to which one came first. The Bible tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. In other words, it is saying that whatever we are hoping for is here now. In a sense, I think hope is a whisper and faith it’s shout of confirmation. I hope for so many things in my life. I turn most of those hopes into prayers of faith. We can’t spend our time worrying about how things will turn out. We will drive ourselves crazy doing that. But everything I have hoped for in my life, I have prayed about and handed over to God. He is faithful to guard those hopes until I can see them, in faith, come to fruition. Are all of my hopes realized? No. And sometimes, it’s Divine Providence that they aren’t! God is a good Father and I thank Him everyday because certain things I have wanted and even hoped for haven’t happened. But I believe if we don’t have hope we have nothing. Think about your life for a minute. What is the reason you keep going? What are the hopes you have for yourself, your family, your friends, your future? Pray about them and then release them. God can handle it. He will guard them with care just as He guards you with care. In the interim, I am hoping I can find my hairspray again locally. For now, I have ordered it through Amazon. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I HOPE it gets here soon. 

#loveyourjourney #youreworthit #bettermewithNewYouCBD #Endo30 #itsuptoyou