My little guy wears many hats. His crocheted Yoda hat works well for cool weather, the blue and white striped fedora works well for going out, and his pumpkin stem hat goes on for sleep. He has a shelf full of them, one to identify every kind of event.

I have many hats too. I love them despite the guaranteed hat head—after years of sun damage, a hat is much more valuable to me than stylish hair. Vanity got me nothing but skin cancer.

But the hats I wear most come with valuable names: Mommy, Wife, Friend, Writer, Artist, Employee of that other job, and the not-so-valuable names: scrubber of floors and bathrooms, scooper of the litter box, cleaner of hairballs, puke, random pee puddles, and anything gross and sticky.

What usually happens is the need to pile on multiple hats at once. This is where blessed, too busy, and exhausted morph into one hat. I call it: Huh? It’s kind of like a fedora and pillbox hat in one—half stylish and the other half—not so much.

This hat is heavy, but it’s the hat-in-fashion because we’re supposed to wear it with pride, right?

Wrong.

I have another hat—one that our culture laughs at. It does give me hat head—that pressed down circle around my head. I think many of you wear this hat too (it’s called The Crown)—but like me, you probably keep putting on Huh? because we think it works better to take everything on ourselves. And despite the pillbox influence, people think Huh? looks more stylish.

When The Miracle of Rain came out, someone in the publishing industry sent me an article on how authors are supposed to manage their time. “I have a newborn baby”, I said. “I’ll do my best, but…”
“Read the article,” he said.

So I did. I read how this woman became a bestselling author because she marketed her book full-time, wrote full time, was a full time mom, held down a full time job, went back to college and managed to stay in shape. I’m serious, this woman claimed to have done it all—full time, wearing her extra-strength Huh? hat.

Me thinks her hat was fiction.

The person who sent me that article? I don’t work with him anymore, and I will never put on that hat again because what it does is squeeze your brains until they fall out. And then you have another sticky mess to clean.

But The Crown is light. And it works for you when you need to rest.

Wait—what’s that word?

Rest.

So disregard those brain squishing Huh?’s and the people who pawn them. They’re nothing but bling for the pillbox. The Crown? Well, the Maker of your crown said that people will indeed mock you, but that’s okay, it’s only because they’re tired and unable to see what they’re really wearing.  It’s been said that when the whole kingdom wears their crowns, they light up the world. I think our world could use a little more of that.