Girl Scout Cookie Flashback...

Sometimes It’s Just Got to be Good Enough

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

It was Girl Scout cookie selling season, and as I wrote the check out for my third box of Caramel deLites, I remembered. I remembered the walk home some fifty years ago as if it were yesterday. Dues were collected, all fifteen cents of them, and next we were loaded up with our boxes of cookies to sell. My little friend and I made our way homeward. We lugged a large container containing the likes of many boxes within the larger box.

Memory doesn’t serve me as to whether they’d been pre-ordered or if we were given boxes to sell at will. The memory that does remain etched in my mind, however, is that on the way home, we got the giggles. As my friend and I giggled, one thing led to another when suddenly, right before my eyes, my fellow scout ripped open a box and began eating the cookies.

I stood there stunned at the sight before me. My laughter turned solemn, and though she offered me some of the goodies with the tempting words, “Nobody will ever know; who cares,” I did not partake in the eating of them. I watched in shock at the audacious trespass unfolding before me with fear. My parents were strict, and you just didn’t produce anything less than honesty. That was the Girl Scout way, and that was my parent’s way. Mom was the one who helped lead the Girls Scouts in town, and Dad looked after many a Boy Scout. If indeed they’d a caught me in such an act, there would have been a price to pay and trust me on this, it would have been a whole lot more than the expense of the box being devoured.

That evening, even more memories were unpacked as I opened a wooden trunk containing a few treasures from childhood. Just beneath the surface was my green Girl Scout sash filled with badges earned. Suddenly, I could picture myself standing beside mom as she signed off on each one. On awards night, we were to wear the sash, the uniform, and the likes of any official gear.

I had the sash and the badges, but not much else was official. Noteworthy was the evening we’d all been waiting for, and just before we left the house, mom handed me my sash. With a shrug she said, “I didn’t have time to sew these on; you’ll just have to wear them the way they are.”

One didn’t have to look too closely to recognize that every badge was held in place by a stick pin. Each badge was aligned within the row where mom had neatly pinned it. Within the hour, I would earn a badge in life that wasn’t in the Girl Scout handbook. No, this was something one can only earn from raw experience in life, and it is called the badge of resilience. That evening I learned to walk in front of the crowd in attendance and simply be who I was. You see, Mom did her best and sometimes…well…sometimes it’s just got to be good enough.

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) 

As imperfection helps build endurance for the journey of life, may we be open to learning the value of lessons beyond the badges earned.   Amen.