Despite our chronic financial challenges my little family and I (me, wife and boy) occasionally treat ourselves to a night in a hotel.
This we recently did. The hotel in question had a warm pool, a hot sauna, and hot tub that was just a few degrees shy of boiling. Myself and the boy started out in the pool. It was like swimming in an overgrown bathtub, which is exactly how I like it. So pleasant was the experience that we decided to try out the hot tub. That’s where things starting going downhill in terms of the pleasantness.

I felt like a lobster being lowered into a boiling pot. After my body got over the initial shock it was actually quite relaxing. The water was so hot that the boy decided to merely dangle up to his knees, while I sat there fully immersed. After the boy commented on the redness of my skin I felt it was an appropriate time to exit the tub.

But then company showed up and since they were complete strangers we had a lot of catching up to do. The two elderly ladies of the group of three were quite impressed by the outgoing personality of our boy. He did most of the talking while I sat there boiling to death, so they likely deduced that he got his personality from his mother. And they would be right. A short time later the boy engaged in another conversation with a young lady on the elevator. Meanwhile, I stood there speechless unable to muster as much as a simple hello. Then again I was still reeling from my extended stay in the boiling pot.

In any case, our long foray into the hot tub led yours truly to develop feelings of sickness. I self-diagnosed myself with dehydration and wrote myself a prescription for two advil and eight to ten glasses of water.

But the hot tub experience got me thinking about the general experiences of life. Firstly, I entered the hot tub of my own free will. Nobody forced me into it. Also, I choose to stay in the hot tub longer than I should have. And I couldn’t help but wonder. Do we sometimes stay longer in situations than we should just because it’s comfortable? I could have exited that hot tub any time I wanted but I choose to stay in it. It was my choice. And I suffered for it.

Who could I blame? The eight-year old? The company of complete strangers? Ultimately no (tempting though it was). I could only blame myself. Of course, the consequences weren’t overly terrible – exhaustion and a headache. Both were remedied fairly easily (see prescription above). However, consequences for life’s bigger choices are not always so easily remedied.

The problem is that we don’t always feel the full extent of staying in certain situation until we’re out of them. I didn’t have a headache while soaking in the boiling pot of water. The headache came afterward. In fact, I felt pretty good while in the tub, which explains my reluctance to get out. The sickly feelings came once the ordeal was finally over. And that’s often how it is in the steamy situations of life.

It’s only after we leave a situation (or relationship) that we begin to see the damage that it has done to us. Perhaps I should not have entered the hot tub in the first place. What was wrong with the pool? Nothing. It was the perfect temperature. Not too hot. Not too cold. But alas the hot tub kept whispering my name. “Surely, you’re not going to leave the pool and fitness area of this fine hotel until you’ve dipped your weary frame in my swirling, soothing waters.”

Perhaps I should have applied Proverbs 23:31-32 to the allure of the tub.
“Do not look on the wine (water) when it is red (clear), When it sparkles in the cup (tub), When it swirls around smoothly.
(32) At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like a viper.”

The scaling water bit my hydration level. It stung my head causing an ache. Not the most exegetically sound interpretation of the above verses but it works for me.