This is only a test.
Last week, on an afternoon where I was particularly frustrated with the current state of life-in-general, I started thinking about my late great-grandmother. I do this sometimes, weird as it may sound, because I like to imagine the advice she would give if I could bury my head in her lap and tell her all about my probably petty twenty-something sorrows.
She would have been the woman to go to for advice. She was one of those grandparents with stories about riding a horse to school in the town over - but she was the kind of woman who did it so she could play on the first women's basketball team around. She was the kind of woman who traveled everywhere - she rode camels in Egypt and donkeys down the Grand Canyon.
She was the kind of woman who refused to crumble after her husband left her back in the days when it simply wasn't heard of. She was the kind of woman who did what she had to to care for her two kids and her late daddy's ranch when a lot of women didn't own their own property or have a job outside the home.
I started thinking about her that day and when I got home I dug through my jewelry box to see if I could find something of hers to wear as a reminder of who she was. I inherited several pieces of her jewelry and found exactly what I hadn't even known I was looking for - a silver sand dollar pendant.
My grandmother loved the Legend of the Sand Dollar and I have earrings that match the pendant now hanging around my neck. But I find it appropriate for myself for a different reason than the Christian iconography it can represent.
Each occurance of a sand dollar is actually the skeleton or "test" of a marine animal, Echinarachnius parma.
(Yes I looked it up and read all sorts of interesting facts about how they eat, move and reproduce. And no I'm not going to subject you to the resulting knowledge of my occasionally-outrageous nerdiness.)
What struck me most was one word: test.
It was as if my beloved great-grandmother had reached down and reproachfully knocked me ever-so-gently upside the head.
"It's only a test, little girl. Only a test. You worry too much about it being perfect - when all you need to do is let it pass."
There are times in life when we are given the opportunity to show our truest colors. Are we strong enough, patient enough, loving enough? Can we push through hard times, wait for the good times and not lash out at everyone else in between?
Courage is a choice - as is strength, integrity, loyalty, love. Each test in life is the opportunity to make a choice. A choice to be the person you've always dreamed you could be, or a choice to flounder and pout and bemoan the difficulties of being you.
I choose to pass this test. And I wear the proof around my neck.
Thanks Grandma.
She would have been the woman to go to for advice. She was one of those grandparents with stories about riding a horse to school in the town over - but she was the kind of woman who did it so she could play on the first women's basketball team around. She was the kind of woman who traveled everywhere - she rode camels in Egypt and donkeys down the Grand Canyon.
She was the kind of woman who refused to crumble after her husband left her back in the days when it simply wasn't heard of. She was the kind of woman who did what she had to to care for her two kids and her late daddy's ranch when a lot of women didn't own their own property or have a job outside the home.
I started thinking about her that day and when I got home I dug through my jewelry box to see if I could find something of hers to wear as a reminder of who she was. I inherited several pieces of her jewelry and found exactly what I hadn't even known I was looking for - a silver sand dollar pendant.
My grandmother loved the Legend of the Sand Dollar and I have earrings that match the pendant now hanging around my neck. But I find it appropriate for myself for a different reason than the Christian iconography it can represent.
Each occurance of a sand dollar is actually the skeleton or "test" of a marine animal, Echinarachnius parma.
(Yes I looked it up and read all sorts of interesting facts about how they eat, move and reproduce. And no I'm not going to subject you to the resulting knowledge of my occasionally-outrageous nerdiness.)
What struck me most was one word: test.
It was as if my beloved great-grandmother had reached down and reproachfully knocked me ever-so-gently upside the head.
"It's only a test, little girl. Only a test. You worry too much about it being perfect - when all you need to do is let it pass."
There are times in life when we are given the opportunity to show our truest colors. Are we strong enough, patient enough, loving enough? Can we push through hard times, wait for the good times and not lash out at everyone else in between?
Courage is a choice - as is strength, integrity, loyalty, love. Each test in life is the opportunity to make a choice. A choice to be the person you've always dreamed you could be, or a choice to flounder and pout and bemoan the difficulties of being you.
I choose to pass this test. And I wear the proof around my neck.
Thanks Grandma.