The Pep Talk

We had upper respiratory symptoms at our house over the weekend. Ryan's nose was draining like Niagra and my throat was having a super sandpapery day. I, of course, did my Dr. mom best. The first antihistamine knocked Ryan out cold. He was still drowsy the next day. A little leery of my treatment offerings, he accepted a second medication, hoping a multi-system cold preparation would be better. It wasn't. Finally, I tried the old-standby, "triple soothing action" cold lozenges. 

Much to my surprise, I found "a pep talk in every drop".  You can read it for yourself. These multi-purpose cold lozenges offered helpful comments such as:

Tough is your middle name.

Go get it! 

Hi-five yourself!

Don't try harder. Do harder!

Put your game face on!

Dust off and get up!

Be resilient!

Put a little strut in it!

The motivational lozenge messages were interminable. Best by 10 March 2015. After that date, I suppose, strut will be irrelevant and you can change back to your original middle name. In my self-pitying doldrums, I began to reply to the lozenges. My middle name is NOT tough! What we need to go get is more tissues! I don't want to try harder or do harder!  I just want to sit on the couch!On and on. 

Truly, the multi-symptom soothing lozenges did very little for my symptoms, but they did provide brief entertainment.  They were not, however, the comfort I expected in my nasal misery, and left me wondering how the "pep talk" idea got started. Who thought people with a cold or the flu would want to read these "encouraging messages"? Did they think it would help sell more lozenges? It was odd, to say the least, and reminded me of old Job's friends. They, too, were pretty poor comfort when he was down and out. Maybe they meant well, but they didn't quite do well, did they?

In times of trouble and sickness, we want real comfort, real support, not some silly slogans on a lozenge wrapper. How grateful I am that we have a Comforter who is with us in all our troubles and never leaves us, no matter how difficult our situation. As we enter the Advent season, give thanks for the Prince of Peace who not only gave us His peace, but left the Holy Spirit to give us comfort in every trial, every sorrow, and never leave us or forsake us. Now that's comfort we can count on.