Holding it together

"So you're holding it together with duct tape. I take it things are a bit rough right now."

No, literally, my bumper is attached to my car with duct tape. It's not a metaphor for the state of my life, it's a description of the state of my car.

There are times when we are hanging by a thread, making it by the skin of our teeth, or just barely gettin by.

Where would we be without duct tape? Sure, it isn't pretty. Yes, it's a quick fix. Some may call it common or tacky. But when your bumper is dragging on the ground at 10 pm on a Saturday night and you are 17 miles from where you need to be, that $4 roll of adhesive cure-all is a mighty nice thing to have.

Things like bumpers, windows, furniture, books...how lucky we are that we have a quick fix like duct tape readily available to us to hold them together. Our relationships, our sanity, our lives cannot be held together so easily. There is nothing we can buy (and certainly not from Wal Mart) to ensure we keep it together through the rough patches. No sticky bandage to cover a hurting heart until we feel strong enough to face the day, no roll of courage to help us make it through the loss of someone we love. What do we use to patch up our lives when that pink slip arrives, someone needs surgery, and we no longer know the face in the mirror?

I think it's faith. Faith that this too shall pass, faith that life is bigger than this situation, this moment. Faith that somewhere inside of each one of us there is a spirit and a unique individual who will do something to get through this and still be able to laugh. Faith is no quick thing-it must be cultivated and developed in order to be strong enough to sustain us in times of need.

Thank goodness for friends. How else would we find silly situations to laugh at after crying for days? What adventure exists that is not made better by having someone else to share the experience? Browsing a bookstore, watching a sunset, raking leaves...all the better to make memories. The jokes, the memories from these times are the things I cherish the most. These are the things we look to when we need reminding of what is good in life. These are the things that restore our faith in our purpose, our great fortune to be on this earth. That faith, those people, those moments- those are the adhesive that help us hold it all together.