Do you fight your hair every morning to beat it into submission? I know I do. Each morning I wash my hair it’s a battle. After years of taking a brush and whip to it, we’ve finally reached an unspoken agreement that if it’ll just mind me a little in the front, it can do whatever it likes in the back.

Seems like when you’re not happy with your hair at the beginning of your day, it all just goes downhill from there. Have you ever noticed that each little thing that goes wrong seems to make your hair look that much worse? The other day was an especially hairy day for me if you’ll pardon the expression, and each time I went to wash my hands I saw my hair sticking up just a little bit more until by the end of the day I resembled Albert Einstein, only without the mustache, possibly.

Just this week, I saw an old friend’s Facebook post showing a picture of her with her family surrounding her. Seeing her bright smiling face coupled with the fact that her hubby had just shaved her bald headed, seemed a little incongruous unless you know her. We went to school together from first through third grade, as well as all during high school, then later our children attended the same tumbling class at the local community college. In all those years, never have I seen her without a happy dimpled smile on her face. Yet here she was ready to kick breast cancer’s butt. What an amazing testimony. Each of her family members had smiles just as big as hers. Such support.

It made me remember watching my sweetie pie auntie go through her journey with breast cancer, the mastectomy, the treatments and dealing with the aftermath of those treatments. For years. I began thinking about other family members and friends who braved the fight with this disease over the years, some winning, some not. My own brush with the same.

Sometimes, when things are beyond our control, we really struggle to make sense of things, feeling helpless. Recently, my pastor encouraged me to look for the blessings in the midst of challenges in my life. I think I’ve just found one. All these women. Their positive outlook, their courage, their determination and their grace. They give me hope.