Sneaky, Sneaky, Sly

A not-very-interesting thing happened to me last week...and it felt like a punch in the face.

It all started a month or so ago. Every morning I get up, take a shower, get dressed, and then blow dry and straighten my hair. I started noticing that it was taking me a long time to style my hair...and I haven't really changed my routine...if anything I have tried to shorten the time it takes to do my hair (if you question this...just look at my hair lately).

Well, last week I slept over at my parents house and instead of plugging my blow dryer in, I used my sisters. WOW, I was blown away, and mean literally BLOWN AWAY! Her blow dryer was powerful...what a blow dryer should be. The time to blow dry my hair was cut by more than half. I loved it...it even made me smile!

So, by now you are asking yourself, why is she writing about this? So her blow dryer stopped working...BIG DEAL!?! Well, as I was using my sister's blow dryer, I realized that my blow dryer just didn't STOP working...it gradually got less and less powerful. It did this so slowly that I didn't notice...maybe it took me 30 seconds to a minute longer each week to blow dry my hair, until it was taking 20 minutes a day (seriously I have like 5 strands of hair it should only take 5 minutes for a quick blow dry). As, I was thinking about how this broken blow dryer snuck up on me...I started thinking about how this is a REAL LIFE PARABLE.

How often does this happen in my life or in the world? For example: I make a goal to read my scriptures everyday and I do really good for a really long time. Then I go on a trip and forget to pull them out one night. No big deal, I start again the next. But maybe instead of reading 30 minutes, I start justifying only reading 20 minutes because I am tired...and then 10 minutes, and then one day I realize I haven't read my scriptures in months. (This is just an example and not confession). Or, my goal to eat 5 fruits and vegetables each day, only to find myself justifying months later that green jell-o counts as a vegetable because it is green. How often does this happen to you? This happens to me with the words I say quite often.

This kind of sneaky subtle change isn't always bad. Example: I didn't always pray every night. I made a goal in my early 20's to start praying each evening. Sometimes I would forget but most nights I would say my evening prayers. One night as I was laying in bed tossing and turning, wondering why I couldn't fall asleep, it came to me...I hadn't said my prayers. I immediately said them and fell right asleep. The prayers snuck up on me and became an important part of my life without me even realizing it.

So, there you have it. My REAL LIFE PARABLE. Something so insignificant yet it felt like a punch in the face and made me examine my life. I have thought about the blow dryer everyday...sometime multiple times a day. Each time, a new thing comes to my mind, things I need to change, and things that I have changed for the good...without even realizing it.

Thanks Mr. Blow Dryer!