Freewheeling Blog: Hot Dogs and a Life Lesson

I steadied myself as I walked toward the high school principal's office. I wasn't in trouble, but maybe I was about to be.

The senior class at my small high school in Poteet, Texas, had commissioned me to speak to the principal. As class president, my job was to change his mind about our senior trip menu.

A prior senior class a few years before had shamed our school by being kicked out of an amusement park during senior trip. A few class members had shoplifted. Since then, our school administrators had specified a single option for senior trip: a day trip to Garner State Park near Uvalde.

Everything was the same every year with no exceptions, including hot dogs for lunch. My senior peers didn't want hot dogs. They wanted hamburgers. I went in to convince our principal, Mr. Rice.

It wasn't a long conversation. I made my impassioned plea for hamburgers. He waited until I was finished, then simply said, "Cecil, those seniors have eaten hot dogs before. And they're just going to get to eat them again."

I had to laugh at that line. But it has stuck with me the rest of my life.

Like everyone, I have faced numerous challenges in life. Some have repeated themselves. When that happens, I have found myself saying, "I've gone through X before. And I'm just going to get to go through X again."

Mr. Rice surely didn't realize it, but he taught me a lesson on coping and resilience. We can't always get what we want. In fact, we may not like very much what we get - or experience - or suffer through. But we can get through it.

I'm looking at some wares I purchased from overseas. They're not what I thought they were. It's going to be a pain to return them. Maybe I won't even be able to do so. And my windshield is cracked. I have a new insurance company, so I have to figure out how to file a claim.

But I've returned packages and figured out new insurance company procedures before. And I'm just going to get to do those chores again.

Don't miss the phrasing that somehow helps: "get" instead of "have to." Perhaps it's a mind trick, but I've found it useful to think of an experience as "getting" to do it again rather than "having" to do it again. It sounds like opportunity and choice, the value of perseverance and the benefit of experience. God can help us get through a lot of life's adventures until we make it to our heavenly home.

I went to the principal's office to secure hamburgers instead of hot dogs. I left with a life lesson.