Toothpaste Ponderings

I have a traveling toiletries container that has stayed in varying stages of “packed” all summer. Between weekend “getaways”, road trips, weddings, and camp twice...I feel like I’ve been in some stage of journey consistently for the last 3+ months. Rather than consistently be looking for my travel shampoo, toothbrush, and soap...I’ve just kept everything I didn’t need from the convenience of home in that little zippered pouch.

Including my traveler’s toothpaste.

Those little bottles of toothpaste typically last me about two weeks brushing twice a day. I had gone through a week of camp and three weekends away on the little tube in my possession, but I was about to start a second week of camp. As I pulled out my toothbrush to brush my teeth that first night I cringed. I hadn’t bothered to check for the amount and my supply of toothpaste was unimaginably low. There was no way I was going to make it through the whole week. “Maybe I can just borrow some or maybe I’ll have to go out and buy more...” I sighed to myself. And I continued to squeeze out of my little toothpaste bottle.

I brushed morning and night...each time wringing the tube for all it was worth. I threw away the empty roll this morning after glopping the last little ball of toothpaste onto my brush. Miraculously, mysteriously, and quite unpredictably, the toothpaste lasted me the entire week.

And right now, actually all through the week, I’ve felt just a little bit like that tube of toothpaste. Like I didn’t come in with enough to begin with and it was going to be nothing shy of a miracle if I made it through the whole week. I’m debating now whether or not there had always been the perfect amount inside regardless of what it looked and felt like or whether or not I was forcing product long past the time it had anything to give.

I realize that at the end of the day (or the week) either way God sustained but I’m so incredibly wasted, worn out, used, abused, and thrown away. It is hard to decipher purposeful destruction and whittling away at what I had to give and pushing beyond the capacity of capability. I’ve never finished a camp week feeling so defeated, so alone, and so separated from the God I spent my week claiming to serve. What does this mean in terms of the life I am trying to live?

My favorite song right now is “I Will Life My Eyes” by Bebo Norman. The chorus claims “I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can’t climb. I will lift my eyes to the calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will lift my eyes to the healer of the hurt I hold inside...I will lift my eyes”. I desperately want to focus on the one who is more powerful than the things I cannot conquer, the things I cannot control, and the things I can neither share or express. But I’m having a hard time lifting my head. And I’m having a harder time believing life won’t always be this way.