It’s mid-March. The sun was shining and it was 70 degrees in Lexington yesterday. After a brutal six weeks of record breaking temperatures and snowfalls in Kentucky—in Lexington we hit -18, and that’s not wind chill; and we saw nearly 30”of snow fall accumulate in two arctic blasts. We also had motorists stranded on Kentucky Interstates for 24+ hours and that story made national news. So sunshine and 70 degrees? Everywhere I went yesterday, people were happy, happy, happy.
So I’m at —where else—the car wash, where apparently half the south side seems to have the same idea, so it’s crowded like Fayette Mall at Christmas time, which means, not an inch of breathing room, and no where to put your car.
So long wait, browsing the aisles of the little shop attached to the car wash and I notice this huge, maybe 3’x3’ sign for sale, with these words:
For a happy life you need three things:
Someone to love
Something to do
Something to look forward to
I’m thinking how profound this is and how I’d like to have the sign for my office, when I notice my car has moved and so I need to follow it.
This time I end up sitting next to an elderly couple (ha, soon I’ll be the elderly person and probably am already to some youngsters!) and I happen to notice they are both on their cell phones. I’ve got mine out too, and soon the gentleman strikes up a conversation about us all being tied to our phones.
JC and his wife Irene told me that he was trying to Face Time with a girl in Vietnam that he is working with on a mission program. He also shared with me that he’s a Vietnam Vet, having served in the Army in 1969 when he was 20.
I said I remember it well. We lived in Indiana. I was 16 and my brother and his best friend, both two years older than me, drew high numbers in the draft lottery that year, so avoided going to Vietnam. My husband, then living in Ohio, and four years older, went to college and stayed in college to avoid the draft. JC chuckled, “Wise move!”
JC shared that he’d learned a lot about Vietnam in later years, how the politicians misrepresented our mission there. Hmm, now we’re talking, I thought to myself. He was retired and had been working with “Vets with a Mission,” which, according to their website, “is a group of Vietnam veterans and non-veterans who are dedicated to bringing healing, reconciliation and renewal to the people of Vietnam.” He shared how much he loved this new work and this mission. His passion was palpable. His wife was looking on her phone for inexpensive gifts for him to take with him. He’d been to Vietnam four times in the past few years, most recently with a church mission group.
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My car was ready and we parted, but not before I had a chance to share with JC and Irene about the sign I’d seen earlier. We agreed that the three of us had all found something to do and something to look forward to each day. And by the look of their relationship, it appeared they’d each found someone to love, as have I. So to repeat:
For a happy life you need three things:
Someone to love
Something to do
Something to look forward to
At the car wash, of all places: a simple, but profound message for our times.
So time to find a mission, or to renew one!
Last night when I told my husband the story, he said, “Let’s go back to the car wash and buy the sign!” Today, we did just that. It’s the picture on this blog post. Tomorrow it will be hanging in my office so that everyone will be inspired by it.
Sanity now!
