Dry days

Not so long ago we got labelled as a health promoting school. It wasn’t just about introducing healthy options in the school canteen but also raising health awareness among the staff. There was a rash of things for staff including a lady that came to do various massages, classes for yoga and meditation, and a million leaflets scattered about the place about diets and dealing with stress.

A friend was leafing through one of the leaflets to compare her eating habits with the “ideal”. She decided that she was probably eating too much protein, enough fruit and vegetables, and possibly not enough of the complex carbohydrates! She was pretty much convinced that she was not drinking enough water.

When I first joined Weight Watchers, I did try to increase my water intake. It seriously disrupted my carefully timed toilet breaks! In any other environment, toilet attendance is probably not so strictly worked out – but my life is directed by bells. In my pre-weight watching existence, toilet breaks coincided with break time and lunchtime. After trying to drink more water, things went a little awry! There are some classes where I need to be in the room when they arrive. If they are allowed access to the snibs on the door – they will lock themselves in and grin at you as you helplessly knock and wait to be let in. I could afford to allow a first year class to wait for me, but not a fourth year class. My bladder did not seem to be able to make the distinction so I returned to my old water drinking habits!

I still try to drink more but recognise that my body is probably in a permanent state of dehydration! I am not sure that my body would know what to do with the excess!

It came as quite a shock to discover yesterday that my car engine was seriously dehydrated too! The plan yesterday was to join some friends for a friendly quiz night at King’s Fellowship in Culloden. Driving to pick up Joe on the way, I noticed the temperature gauge in the car was not just steadily rising but overheating at a tremendous rate. It was well into the red bit, which I assume is not good. In a panic I drove home. I wasn’t sure what the car might do, but I envisioned that it would involve lots of smoke and a huge garage bill.

A friend told us that it sounded like the water in the radiator needed topping up, and at the end of the evening, at half past ten at night, bonnet up, in the torch light, checked out his theory. He was right – extremely right. Bone-dry so it was.

You see I am not mechanically literate. I had hoped long ago that my wonderful husband would learn to drive, pass his test and take on the mantle of car maintenance. It’s a boy thing – along with “slugs and snails and puppy dog tails”. Car oil levels, spark plugs and radiators – it’s boy stuff. I can do the air freshener that hangs from the mirror, and keep the glove compartment relatively tidy – but underneath the bonnet, all those tubes and stuff – that is boy stuff! And yet as the driver of the family I have the responsibility thrust upon me!

May be it is time to enrol in the car maintenance class and not just think about doing it!

There is a refrain from a worship song that is running through my head “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, Your Spirit like water to my soul.” In the body water flushes out toxins and joins the blood in transporting red blood cells and oxygen around the body, in my car the water keeps everything cool and prevents the engine from overheating.

The water of the Holy Spirit does a similar job – taking the oxygen teaching of Jesus and transporting it to nurture my spirit. He flushes out the toxins – attitudes and thoughts that if left unchallenged would prove harmful. He prevents me from overheating, by being the small still voice of faith and reason that keeps me from loosing it!