1898 advertising poster

1898 advertising poster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

At Snopes.com, I looked up Ivory soap, which floats because they whip a little air into it.

 

The soap is made by Proctor & Gamble.

 

They named that white soap after a Bible verse. It’s from Psalm 45:8 where it says, “All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of ivory palaces.”

 

Sometimes we are not in an ivory palace, but somehow involved with family feuds and silent treatments and unpaid bills and lost jobs. We’re over the worst of it. At least we don’t stay in bed too shocked to move and then cry half the day. Maybe we can eat a little, or stop eating too many Krispy Kreme doughnut holes, heated up in the microwave late at night.

 

Have you ever watched the movie “Hope Floats?” Sandra Bullock and Gena Rowlands are in that movie and I like both of those actresses. I looked up some lines from the movie, since I’ve never watched the movie all the way through. The movie is about how Sandra Bullock’s movie screen husband wants a divorce.

 

Sometimes it’s good to go to the movies, because good movies are good therapy. Sandra Bullock’s character in “Hope Floats” is named Birdie Pruitt. At one point, you know Birdie knows (and the writer knows) just what you feel like, how unhappy and lonely (for now) and trying to deal with the way back past as well.

 

Birdie says, “Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome…try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning, just give hope a chance to float up.”

 

Here’s another good line by Gena Rowlands’ character Ramona Calvert: “Look at me. My life has no meaning and no direction, and I’m happy.”

 

It lifts your spirits to realize it’s possible in real life to lose all the meaning you once had and still find some aimless happiness.

 

That Ivory soap sure does last. I started buying Ivory soap to save money. Two little slivers fell in the tub water the other night and they floated right up, easy to find.

 

God blesses the smallest aimless things sometimes. Dear lady, we don’t have to search in that murky water for why anymore. God knows why.

 

God’s got us and He won’t let go. So let’s take a good shower or tub bath or a boat ride, or dangle our feet in a creek, or pull every bit of cover up under our own chin, for once, or for now. It’s time for a good movie. It’s okay to be a little bit happy.

 

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