What's Hot
I’ve come outside to “experience” the northeast Texas heat at my own discrimination and without distraction. Without iced tea. Someone call the paramedics. The first thing I notice is that I’m practically blind without my sunglasses! The second thing is that rattling sound of cicadas, surfing back and forth among the trees as if the wind itself is singing a lazy song in the heat of the day.
I live my summer days like most Texans; heating up the utility bill as I cool down my house so I can be as cool I want; bopping around town in my car with the vents aimed directly at my face and hands for the brace of skin-numbing cold. I spend as little time outdoors as possible this time of year, avoiding the discomfort I know awaits me there. My life of thermo-comfort is a literally sheltered life. And to borrow from the slogan, “Don’t Mess with Texas,” mine could be “Don’t Mess with My Comfort.” It isn’t something that has come with age or accommodation; I’ve always been that way. Just ask my mom.
Even with an aversion to summer temperatures and attempts to stay sequestered in shivery surroundings, for the past two months I’ve found myself plunked down in the Iowa heat for an all-day celebratory graduation picnic; stretched across a lounge chair on a Galveston beach (with a cabana overhead but stifling nonetheless); and traipsing around Russian cities where even the finest hotels lack air conditioning in the rooms (but for a price) and the buses, well, just throw open the windows, catch the exhaust-laden blasts of hot air thrashing about, and hope for the best!
I Googled “benefits of hot weather” to see if there were reasons to thank God for the heat of which I might be ignorantly unaware. The first page of results gave me, ‘Surviving Hot Weather,’ ‘Summer Safety—Hot Weather,’ 10 Hot Weather Safety Tips,’ and the like. I guess they don’t list things like swimming pools and water sports. And I did find a bible verse in which James uses the heat as a bad example: James 1:11 says, “For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.” A dramatic comparison that could not have been made without hot weather!
So even though our “dog days of summer” are yet to come and I personally have no good use for ninety-eight degree days, I thank God anyway. I’ll definitely thank Him more profusely for it when I’m in the throes of the winter blues next January!
It’s miserable out here. What was I thinking? I’m going in for a, cold, inviting glass of iced tea
About the author:
Joye says she has THE best husband, and 2 very, wise children with precious spouses, and 3 beautiful grandchildren who are geniuses. Read her blog Joyeful Things.
