Sugar Cookie

At this year's commencement program at the University of Texas, the man who gave the commencement address was Naval Admiral William H. McRaven.  Admiral McRaven was himself a graduate of UT, who went on to become a Navy Seal and later on the Commander of the US Special Operations Command.  The theme of his address was "what starts here can change the world".  His speech was short but impacting.  In it he shared 10 common aspects of Seal training and used each one as a life lesson of how, if you change yourself, you will have an impact on the world. 

One of the points he shared was how each and every day during training the candidates had to withstand an excruciatingly thorough uniform inspection.  It was an inspection that was meant to find fault, and it did....every single day.  When a candidate failed the uniform training he was made to go jump into the nearby sea while still in uniform, then get out and completely roll around on the sandy beach.  He was then to remain in his wet sandy uniform for the balance of training that day as a lesson.  This was known as "Sugar Cookie".  All of the trainees at one time or another became sugar cookies.  It was just another exercise to break a man and cause him to want to leave the program, not unlike many other experiences during the training.

In our everyday lives as men, husbands and fathers, don't it sometimes seem as if we have been "sugar cookied"?  Aren't there times when we have done nothing but our best, and yet we've been side-swiped by something we never saw coming?  Perhaps, out of the blue, at a time we thought we were doing so well and then ....pow....our spiritual train falls off the tracks and we find ourselves just totally struggling?  Or it could be something in our relationships.  Or it could be in our finances.  Anything, just about anything.

Here was the point that Adm McRaven shared from his experience in Seal training.  No matter how well prepared you are, or how well you perform, you will still end up as a sugar cookie at some point in time.  That's the way life is.  All you can do is get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving.

This sugar cookie business isn't sugar coating anything.  Our spiritual lives will be tested, and at times tested to its limit.  All we can do is trust God and keep moving forward as we struggle to get it back on track.