Life's Lessons are Sometimes Right in Front of Our Eyes

NOT TOO LONG AGO I was attending a social event that really, I hated. I had rather be at a cattle auction than this locale. I won't go into what the event was called, but all I know is that I did not fit in.

I sat down by myself to keep from getting a migraine and just sip my coffee which happen to be "the" highlight of my night.

As I sat and watched the crowd of people from varied walks of life, I noticed in the exposed steel rafters, a lone piece of bath tissue--swaying back and forth with the air conditioning. That tissue is just like me, I thought. Out of place. There are no bathrooms up there. So why is it there? The questions and answers kept rolling.

Maybe someone had a wild bachelor party here and didn't notice the bath tissue? Or maybe some prankish teenager threw it up there to just be a kid. I may never know. But that lone piece of bath tissue said one thing to me: "Sure we don't fit in. But "I" am going with the circumstances and having a good time even if I am alone." That one piece of advice has served me well.

NOT MANY PEOPLE enjoy the sight of an elderly man's worn-out boots. I can understand that. When I was a kid, I didn't appreciate them either. That was until I grew away from being a kid into a semi-old guy. Now I understand not just the beauty, but the milestones a pair of worn-out boots once worn by an elderly man holds for those who are eager enough to learn.

• The worn-out boots symbolize a lifetime of work. Hard work mostly. Working by hand. Doing jobs other people didn't want to do, but his family needed food, rent money, and clothes. So "he," as a young man in his late 20's slipped on his then new-boots then, and took off to another dreadful job after the other. Until the day that the three kids were grown and married off. Then he quietly slipped his worn-out boots off, sat them in the corner of his living room to rest. Along with him.
• Not wearing the stylish, but the necessary clothes and shoes to fit the life and the job.
• Common sense that guided the owner of these boots through mud, water, ice, snow, and the occasional pot holes that bruised his ankles.

Is it when she is dressed for a wild and whispered night on the town? Or when she turns loose of her own feelings and control of how she "should" act? Rigid rules of life can be a death sentence, said a poet of olden days. I can answer this question with this one statement: "When "this" woman holds a particle of God himself in her shaking arms. This moment represents fully a nine-month struggle of enduring, but mostly giving to a person who has not drawn the first breath. Then the moment. The birth of a new life that she has help to manufacture. Yes, every woman at this time has "that" glow around her. "That" glow is God speaking softly, "Nice job."

share the downside of life. I can think of many, but one has to be the worst: Depression. And it can stem from most anything and everything and affect many at first and everyone before it finishes its plague-like growth. Depression chokes, smothers, and can suffocate the precious life out of any person no matter their color or age. And it still reigns in the darkness of a bedroom with curtains closed in daytime as well as the "Midnight Hour" when evil slips through reality. My lesson from depression is: I alone am helpless to fight this heartless being, but with one touch from My Maker, the faithful, I can live if only for one more day.

is similar to human life in the fact that there are animals still enjoying their prime while others are enjoying "a" prime that didn't have years ago when chasing rabbits, raccoons and the fox. All in motion and some at rest. Taking the rhythms of nature by faith and doing what they were made for. Just like people. But with the exception of in the Animal Kingdom, I hear no whining about living conditions, low pay, cruel friends, but a silent acceptance by grace and maturity that leads them to a rest that is well-deserved for they have no shame of slacking-off when their work was to be done.