It was that time again. Time to restock on all the necessary personal hygiene stuff. The necessary trip to Target. It was more than the just wanting to go, browse the racks, see what’s new in that cute little dollar section that will help cozying up the house with a few new adorable items like faux mini succulents in cute colorful pots, or signs with affirmations to boost your morning mojo, or festive cutlery and napkins for the festive shin dig you will host as soon as restrictions from the pandemic are lax enough. It was the spend money and not have a single cute shirt, dress, sock, or necklace to show for it trip. It was an at least get you some Starbucks trip. It was a stay focused and moonwalk away from all of the Sugar Fix earrings trip.
So we did just that. I was not the only one on a necessities only Target run. Yay for friends! Starbucks in hand we made our way to the personal care section of the store. The toothbrush, floss, and mouthwash was easy enough to find. Next was my pursuit of a hair care product I like to use to keep my blonde curls healthy and well moisturized. We strolled down the aisle for said product and it was nowhere in sight. I was confused and disappointed. Every other product in the line was there, fully stocked, but what I was after- nowhere to be seen. I stubbornly, and she patiently did a lap or two around the additional hair care product aisles to see if there was something comparable or if I’d just overlooked it. Nothing.
She needed to go look for something else and so I decided before I went on to the next items on my little index card of a list I’d check one more time. This time I stooped down to where the line of products were and began to read every white and red sales tag. There was a tag for the moisturizer but the space looked empty until I tilted my head slightly and saw that all the way on the back there was one bottle left. Victory! I grabbed it, put it in the cart, and made my way over a few more aisles for the rest of my items. I left Target with everything I set out to purchase, but what brought me the most joy was perhaps the product I felt I needed the most, had some difficulty finding, and still managed to obtain in the end.
It just took a little persistence, a little refusing to call defeat when I didn’t see what I wanted right away, a little grit. I’m finding that life is similar, especially if we remain persistent and active participants in our lives.
It would indeed be somewhere between wonderful and absolutely glorious if the things we needed in life were always there on demand requiring no effort on our part. Hello cure and vaccine for Covid-19, all the cancers, HIV/AIDS, etc. etc. etc. No circling aisles, no stooping. No head tilting. Just show up, reach slightly, expectation fulfilled, need met. If we could just show up with our lists and readily go to where we think what we need should be, find it, take it, and keep it moving. If we could just relocate, need a job with a certain salary to afford the cost of living, show up somewhere and it was just there for us, home and job contract, needing our signature. If we could go to the birthday party or wedding, and ta to the da, there is that vision of a partner and when we need them to ask for our number and to take us to dinner, we just rattle off those ten digits and share that Thursday or Friday that week would work really well for our schedule. When we need the doctor to say that the lump we felt was not the cancer…again. When we need the police officer to not start his visit at our front door with “I’m sorry have to tell you this…” But life doesn’t really happen that way.
Our needs are not always met when and how we anticipate. We find ourselves having to make laps, reach higher, bend lower, shuffle to the left, shuffle to the right, reconsider if we really need what we think we need or if something else will suffice. We find life requires our active participation and our persistence. It requires grit and grace, so much grace.
I could have shrugged and kept it moving in Target. I could have been annoyed and decided I’d go to another Target or just pay the higher price for the same product at the drug store. Or I could have just settled for another product altogether. I could have told myself what I thought I needed was a want and that what I needed was a moisturizer for my hair type and what I wanted was that particular brand. But I didn’t. I wasn’t convinced that my need wasn’t a need and that where I was, that current circumstance, that Target, was not going to deliver. It was just going to require a little more action on my part and a little patience on behalf of my Target run partner.
Sometimes we are convinced that God is not restocking the answer to a particular need because we don’t see it the way we expected to receive it.
We make our plans, our lists, and trust our capacity, prowess, traditions, bank accounts, meds, drugs, liquor, kids, partners, degrees, weight loss, to meet it. And we are at a loss when it’s not there. We are confused, sad, angry, frustrated, disappointed, distressed when we what we thought should be isn’t. When we did what we usually do and life dares to spit out a different unaccounted for outcome when and how we thought it should. When life requires more from us than we feel prepared to give it.
The thing is, life will indeed require more, much, and many times again and again. It will necessitate that we circle around, that we look high and low, that we get up close and read all the signs, and that we reach further than we were probably prepared to do. Yet in all of this, in ALL OF THIS, God in His goodness and love, provides grace. He provides grace for each lap pf life we take in grief, in heart ache, in disappointment. He provides grace for each stretch we take to break generational curses, to push past generational trauma, to go a little further than what our social identities and the broken system of our country says we ought. He provides grace for bent knees and bowed backs in prayer for miracles, restoration, redemption, forgiveness. He provides grace for us to see what he saved for us, what he left all the way in the back for us, what He deemed necessary to meet the need, no the fulfillment, of His word for a plan for us to give us a future and a hope.
I have no idea of what you are in the need of as you read this. If it’s a moisturizer for curly hair, I love Garnier’s Buttercream. It comes in a green chunky bottle and runs about $6.00. But if you need more than some hair moisturizer, I want to encourage you this week to not give up on what you need, the faith that it will be met, and the grace that is yours in the meantime. How it gets met is absolutely going to take some participation on your behalf. Read that last sentence again.
Your life requires your participation. It requires that you adjust, that you shift, that you stand on your tippy toes, suck in your gut, lean back slightly. It requires moments that are not glamorous and are strictly about the necessary things to keep you healthy not looking and passing for healthy. It requires vulnerability and connecting with other people who will go with you and be there with you when your life is not just about the vacations, promotions, soirees, new handbags, and hosting a fabulous girls’ night at your place. It requires a level of self-awareness and grit to know that even when circumstances suggest this is not what you need or what you need may elude you that grace has you exactly where you need to be for the need to be met.
Persistently participate in the meeting of your needs this week knowing you have every grace, mercy, and ounce of grit to do so. Showing up is a start, but sometimes you have to be willing to do more than show up. If you need help, ask. Sometimes we need others to help us on our journey towards getting our needs met. For my beloved fellow believers reading this, yes, God meets every need we have. However, to suggest that even He does not require us to participate would not be true. He’s a good, gracious, and giving God, not a genie. Hang in there this week. Don’t walk away too quickly. Trust that you are where you need to be for your need to get met.
With Love,
Grit + Grace