When the Curtain Pushes In

There is a strange thing that happens in the shower.

The water gets warm. The air inside begins to rise. And somehow, even though there is an opening at the top, the plastic curtain starts moving inward. The space around you gets smaller. The curtain pushes toward you, almost as if the outside air is trying to shrink the room you are standing in.

It is called the shower curtain effect.

And I think life can feel that way sometimes.

You can be doing the right thing. You can be trying to create warmth, peace, health, love, forgiveness, and encouragement. You can be trying to live with a good heart. And still, pressure from the outside pushes in.

And before long, the space inside your heart can start to feel smaller.

But here is what I have been thinking about: the curtain does not move inward because the shower is cold. It moves because there is warmth, movement, and rising air.

Sometimes pressure shows up not because life is empty, but because life is moving.

I have had the privilege of caring for people in their later years. And one thing I continue to notice is that many of the people who seem to age with the most beauty, strength, and peace are not people who had easy lives. Many of them have suffered deeply. They have lost spouses. They have buried friends. They have endured sickness, war, poverty, grief, and seasons they never would have chosen.

But somewhere along the way, they made a decision.

They decided not to let the pressure outside them determine the posture inside them.

That does not mean positivity cures every disease or guarantees a person will live to 100. Life is more complicated than that. But I do believe a hopeful spirit changes the way we carry the years we are given.

A positive disposition is not pretending the curtain is not pushing in.

“This space may feel smaller right now, but my soul does not have to shrink with it.”

That is the kind of life I want to encourage.

I do not just want to care for bodies. I want to care for people. Whole people. People with stories, grief, joy, regrets, victories, families, memories, and dreams still alive inside them.

Health is not only blood pressure, lab results, medications, and diagnoses. Those things matter deeply. But health is also the way we wake up in the morning. The way we speak to our spouse. The way we forgive. The way we encourage our children. The way we treat the person who can do nothing for us. The way we hold hope when the curtain starts pushing in.

So today, maybe the encouragement is simple:

Do not let the pressure outside you steal the warmth inside you.