You'll Live

Do I choose the strawberry Banana, or pick up Odwalla's? I pondered, wondering which one was a better buy in nutritional value. My night at Starbucks should be be nice, and the last thing to make it sour will be choosing the wrong fruit juice for company---let me take a closer look. So I thought, and thought, and read the labels over and over again. 

“Mommy!” came the murmuring voice of a child next to the fruit juice section. “Mommy!” the voice came again, and followed by a plaintive, buzzing plea. “You'll live,' I heard a certain adult female voice say in response.  

How fitting these words are for what I was internally contemplating throughout the week. I turned to see a pretty mother with her son clutching onto her right leg. Her son seemed about 5 years old, and was all up in complaint for the cold temps in HEB's fruit juice and vegetables section.

“Mom, it's cold!” He went on. His mom without looking downward at him, but purposefully looking to pick out her vegetables, assuredly repeated: “You'll live.” I turned a quick glance again, and saw the certainty of her words on her face: She knew beyond all doubt that the cold would do her son no harm.

I got engaged with this scene. I repeated her words to draw her attention, which she gave, and looked down at her son with a smile, who also realizing my presence looked up at me. I sent a hello his way, which he hid from, holding onto mommy's right leg much more firmly. “Why don't you say hello back?” His mom urged. 

We got into a quick chat, the lady and I. I asked of her family, and she readily told me of her four children, three of whom were also in the store with her, but were with their dad, an isle way, towards the bread section. Her fourth, a baby girl, she pointed at to show me---she was strapped into her carriage and placed safely within the front part of her dad's shopping cart, his eyes close-by for guard. A nice family, I thought to myself, and I enjoyed the exchange.  

Small talk all this was, so soon it was time to part ways. She walked farther down the fruit juice section. 

I walked away thinking it all over, after I choose both Odwalla's smoothie and Bolthouse Farm's Strawberry Banana---why not try them both.

You'll live? I questioned. How fitting, these words, and perfect dose for most of life's ails. The odds may be stacked against us, the circumstances (to us) may not bode well, the job is in a little way fulfilling, and the relationship is locked in stalemate, or headed for the rocks and often the search long. 

Yet the parallels of those and the scene in the store are not stretched---the settings are not very different from the cold temps in the store that day, for the little boy. But his older and wiser mom, loving nonetheless, knowing well what the end is, and the benefit of the moment for years to come, in perseverance, assuredly says: You will live. 

And in a similar fashion, the the great One above, of greater love, and understanding, and purpose, often in response to our ceaseless cries for relief from cold or hot temperatures, says: "You'll live." And in living, hope. 

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It cries in the supermarket too.

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