We all know the analogy of the egg and the carrot in hot water. The egg becomes hard when placed in boiling hot water and the carrot becomes soft and mushy.

But during my boiling hot water times I didn’t want to be the egg or the carrot.  Becoming hardened did not appeal to me, but becoming soft was not an option. My life and daughter needed me to be strong and resilient. So what was the alternative?

I have come to intimately know the alternative as “being tea”.  The idea of a tea bag, with its unique flavor infiltrating and changing the hot water, appealed to me.

The more I thought about this analogy the more  it resonated with me. Every tea bag is so distinctive, singular and special. And once it is placed within hot water it changes the water in such a way that it can never be just water again. It is now tea…

My biggest realization was that the tea bag resembles God. My Father that keeps me together, through whom my flavor filters. He is not on the sideline, a mere spectator during my hot water times. He is also not the one orchestrating my challenges and dipping me in the boiling water. He is actually with me in the water, He is the one that holds me together. He protects me from falling apart. And together we make tea…