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The Hard Hat
It was official.
He was all grown up on me.
At the end of this past summer, we moved our youngest son, Kole, into his first house. He had lived in a dorm during his first 2 years of college, so this was a major step towards independence and adulthood. I did what most Moms do. I cleaned and organized, stocked his pantry, and advised him on budgeting and bill paying. And then…I worried.
He was facing a tough year ahead, his first year of nursing school and his 3rd year of college football. The schedule of just one of those is like having a full-time job. How was he going to manage both of them? It was going to be a grind. Add the responsibilities of renting a home, paying bills, buying groceries…I was concerned that it might be too much for him. Would he rise to the occasion? Would he spread his wings and fly? I could feel myself holding my breath as I awaited his response to the upcoming challenge.
Before leaving him in his new abode, I took one last look around, feeling proud and a bit melancholy. Then I glanced over to the corner of the living room where I noticed he had added a special touch of his own. There on a wooden chair sat a hard hat.
“What’s this here for? Do you want me to take it back home with me?” I knew it was the one he had worn during his summer job and thought it might have been packed by mistake.
“No. I meant to put it there. I want to look at it every single day.”
I gave him a puzzled look.
“When things get hard this year, I want it to remind me to stay the course. To keep pursuing my dreams. I don’t want to live my life in a hard hat.”
He had worked long hours out of town on a construction job all summer, saving up every penny to put towards living expenses for the upcoming school year. Some days he put in as many as 16 long hours of manual labor in the Oklahoma heat, only to go to his hotel afterwards to shower before heading to a tiny local gym to get his football workouts done. The summer of not-so-much fun had left its mark on him.
My eyes watered a little (and still do, thinking about it as I write this.) The hard hat…it represented the path he did not want for his life. It stood for a temporary means to a more permanent destination, a necessary evil on his way to a greater good. That kind of life’s work is certainly very honorable, and those who choose it deserve much respect. He, however, did not enjoy it. He quickly learned that was not what he wanted for his life. It brought him zero joy and fulfillment. The summer was strenuous. It was long. It was brutal.
But the path ahead of him… It will be strenuous. It will be long. It will be brutal. Either way he chooses will be hard. But looking at that hat everyday would remind him which kind of hard he wanted more.
We all have our hard hats. A memorial of something that we haven’t liked in our lives. A season. A relationship. A mistake. A choice. We all have them. It’s what we do with them that matters. Do we use them as motivation to propel us into change, no matter how arduous walking through that change may be? Do we look at them as a reminder to not settle for less than what we truly want in this life, even though going after those things is not easy in its own right?
Change is hard. GROWTH IS HARD. But so is staying in our current misery. I’m reminded of the great Exodus in God’s Word when the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses. They had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. SLAVES! They did back-breaking labor under the scorching desert sun day after day after day. Year after year after year. Generation after generation after generation. God was finally leading them to freedom, to a glorious land He had promised to them. BUT FIRST, they had to cross the wilderness, and the wilderness was hard. It challenged their faith in God. It challenged their belief systems. It challenged their desire for a greater life. The path to the Promised Land was so difficult at times (partly due to their poor attitudes, but that’s a sermon for another day) that, at one point, they asked to go back to Egypt, the place of their enslavement. The grueling path to freedom they were on made them forget and even miss the misery they had left behind. They needed a hard hat to remind them.
Marriage is hard, but so is divorce. Sobriety is hard, but so is addiction. Saving money is hard, but so is having debt. Forgiving others is hard, but so is living in bitterness. We must choose our hards wisely. Some of them lead to a promised land while others keep us enslaved, never allowing us to experience the freedom and fulfillment that God desires us to enjoy.
Kole survived the first semester of this rigorous season he is in. He knows he has quite a journey ahead before reaching his ultimate goal of being a nurse practitioner. But he is well on his way. He has risen to the occasion. I don’t know if that hard hat still sits in that wooden chair in his living room, but I know it is never far from the back of his mind. And that hard hat, along with a lot of prayers from this mama, is spurring him on to do all that God has called him to do.
The Hard Hat…what’s yours? Look at it. Acknowledge it. Learn from it. Even thank God for it. BUT whatever you do, don’t settle for it and certainly don’t go back to it. Let it drive you on to greater things in 2022. You weren’t meant to live your life in a hard hat. You were predestined for a promised land.
Kole's Hard Hat....