I Need a "G" String

My journey over the past few months has been very personal and painful which is why I had given up blogging. The other day I finally said, "The heck with it! I"ll blog anyway." After all, with out pain, sorrow, and every day struggles, how would we ever be able to find God in the midst of journey?

Though we have endured desperate measures, unwanted negative attention, and extreme attacks, God was ever present and ever helpful. I don't usually watch the show Survivor but one day I watched as team members had to hold on to a rope connected to a net. The opposite team tried to add weight to the net of its opponent which allowed the net to become heavier and more demanding to hold on to. That whole scene pretty much summed up what my family and I had been going through the past few months. If the team member let go of the rope then they were out of the game.

We tend to look at life that way. Along the rugged road of our journey, the opposition tries to throw things into the net causing it to become very heavy. Over time the net becomes heavier and more difficult to hold on to so we struggle with all of our strength desperately trying not to let go of the rope in fear that we may lose the game. The truth is, God wants to hold the net, has the net, and will take care of the net if we let him. Sometimes we just need to let go.

This past week God brought something into our life that allowed us to let go - if for a moment. While at our family counseling session, my youngest son laughed half way through it. Finally after a while the counselor asked, "What are you laughing about?" My son's response was, "You remind me of Mr. Rogers." Apparently all that was needed to complete the scene was a cardigan sweater and the tune of, "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood . . . "

What topped off our beautiful day in the neighborhood was my oldest son casually strolling into the kitchen, as most teens do, and almost shouting, "Mom! I need to buy a G string!" After a pause and the realization of what had been said, we all burst into laughter and tears as if a pressure cooker had exploded. When our hands flew up in laughter, suddenly our net dropped to the floor. Suddenly the heaviness of it didn't matter. We didn't care anymore! God grabbed hold of the net falling to the floor. God grabbed hold of what we now let go of.

I understood my son's request of needing a string. He, being a guitarist, often does break a string now and then.

I don't laugh enough, I don't play enough, I don't smile enough. . . but thank you God for bringing those light-hearted moments to the surface that will allow us to let go of the heavy nets so that we can find laughter.

That day as my son and his dad were walking out the door to get the G string, the last thing I heard my son say was, "And I'm not asking for Nylon either!"