Mama Says: "Back Your Ears"

This is shaping up to be a challenging summer for the women in my circle. Two of my closest friends are dealing with multiple family illnesses that require their time and care. Other friends and family members have lost loved ones or are dealing with difficult personal trials. Their situations make me feel blessed that my struggles right now are all professional—two teams of people working two states apart to meet a tough deadline. It’s one of those projects we’ll all look back on and say, “How on earth did we pull that off?” But these are surmountable obstacles. If nobody’s in the hospital, it’s all good. When I was a kid, there was this commercial—can’t remember what it was for—but the slogan was “When you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything.” My cousins and I used to chime in, “When you’ve got your health . . . and about 2 million dollars . . . you’ve got just about everything.” The truth is, you can live without the 2 million dollars, but I'm thankful for every day that my family is healthy. One of the friends I mentioned is about to help her father through cancer surgery and treatment. And when we talked about it, she said her family would just face it and deal with it together, one day at a time. She has always reminded me of my mother. Mama’s a very face-it-and-deal-with-it kinda gal. When I was a teenager, going on about something difficult or unpleasant I had to do, Mama the farm girl would say, “Everybody has to do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta back your ears and do it.” (For those of you who didn’t grow up on a farm, “back your ears,” refers to the habit animals—particularly horses and mules—have of laying their ears back when they’re mad or reluctant to do something.) Today, I'll be backing my ears and trying to figure out how to make the copy work on a tricky layout. Sounds pretty silly to worry about that. To all my sisters backing their ears for much bigger challenges—I'll be liftin' you up this morning. And I want to share my mother's favorite Scripture:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth,
 and even for evermore. Psalm 121

[Image by James R. Gray at Freerangestock.com]

 

Comments

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