I have a friend.  She seeks me out at work just to check in and sift through the snapshots of our lives and see what’s there to grow from, think about, cry for, and together we look for the Lover of our souls working.  Her encounters warm me and remind me I’m not alone at the campfire.  Recently, she took the choral group from our school on a trip to New York City.  They were gone for four days and I watched eager for their pictures telegraphed home on social media, smiles wide, eyes sparkly, joy.  When my friend came back to school on the fifth day, we sat at my table in the bookstore, her telling me stories, me picturing them eager in my head.   This one, though, this “picture” story?  It knicked at my heart and left it sore and tender.  I can’t forget  what I “see”.

They’d been in Central Park that day.  The afternoon was setting in and cold sat heavy in the air.  They made their way across the street to a Starbucks to warm up with coffee.  A quick and easy fix.  No one needed to think twice about it.  It was there and they could get it.  Each student, at the beginning of the trip, had been given a “blessing bag” with some things in it a person with nowhere to go and nowhere to turn might want.  Small comforts.  They were told to look with eyes to see, to be watching for the person who they wanted to give their bag to.

As they walked out of Starbucks, the wind tapping them on the shoulder, one of the young ladies noticed someone sitting on the sidewalk a few paces away.  She was a tiny asian woman; older.  “I’ll be right back,” whispered the student to my friend, her teacher.  She kneeled down and smiled at the woman.  Her smile alone is a gift.  I’ve seen it myself in the hallways at school.  How bright, I think, that smile must’ve been to this tired woman, seasoned and slapped by a harsh street life, used to feeling invisible.  She handed her the bag and life spread across the woman’s face.  Hat, gloves, snacks.  Such simple things.  The group moved on down the sidewalk.  My friend turned back;  just a last glimpse.  The woman was hungrily shoving the package of crackers in her mouth; one right after the other.

I think of that scene and I feel it in my gut.  She is still out there somewhere, most likely.  I look over at my girl on the couch tonight wrapped in blankets, her belly full, the tap tap tapping of her knitting needles in the quiet of the room.   When we pass out crackers, a stomach is filled for a bit; maybe just enough hope for one more night; staving off despair I know nothing about.   When we pass out crackers,  we hear the wrapper rip open behind us and we see the world different and closer up. I long for that woman to know warmth and soft and fullness.  I pray for that student to carry what she saw with her.  I thank God for that teacher, my friend and her heart, who longs for the deeper things, and took her there to pass out crackers.

The girl and I packed up the week and left school today a little tired.  We had a big grocery shop to do for an elderly lady and her husband who have long since found it difficult to maneuver the aisles, their legs heavy and hurting from disease and age.  We’ve been doing that for going on 8 years now.  Eight Christmases we’ve pulled out their decorations from under the stairs, and helped tuck her snowman collection in nooks and crannies.  It feels like my own house, I know it so well.  She makes me taste her homemade cranberry sauce tonight before we go.  She knows I love it and has a small container ready for me to take some with me,  so much more the treasure since my own grandmother isn’t here anymore to make my custard and chocolate meringue pie.

We eat hungry at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  We like it because they give us so much food that we always have a squeaky styrofoam container full of leftovers to take home with us.  We drive home and I always insist that the girl notice.  The sky?  It is one of a kind, we’ll never see it exactly the same again, I tell her and she looks with perspective limited to her age.  I notice, as I get older, that I drink in the sight with a gulp more eager,  keenly aware the fleeting grace gift, that each small glimpse isn’t a given forever.

We come home and put on our new sweat pants, scored free because my friend at work thought to give me a coupon.  They somehow feel softer and cozier because of that.  Earlier last week another friend brought the girl a tiny bag to school, all green and pink and white,   doughnuts from a place called Paradise  just for her for no reason other than because.  These “becauses”, these little bags of paradise and coupons that make things free?   The sunsets from God’s paintbox and chicken fried rice more than enough?  Sorting out groceries and snowmen collections that mean memories to someone else?  These are the currency of blessings.  They wrap my heart up snug, the give and take, the cadence of walking steady when we are loved and love well.  They make the moments unsure of where to stand a little easier to take.  They wipe the sweat of figuring out how to live off our foreheads.

I tap out these words and my phone dings quiet.  It’s a picture of my older girl in her wedding dress fresh from the day’s mail delivery.  I look at it, and remember back to her wondering days when she was a young girl….where will I live?  What will I do?  Who will I marry?  Her answers are beginning to take shape and it snaps and crackles in my heart like fireworks  to hear her voice, incredulous joy at her own good fortune.  I think back to times disappointing to her.  “You watch.  You wait.  You’ll see,” I told her, a lump in my own throat, because I loved her so much.  I put my phone back down, tears catching at the corners of my eyes.

I glance over at the girl, wrapped in her gray and pink blanket, homework on her lap even on a Friday night because her school is important to her. There’s a quiet hum from the fireplace heater.  The washer in the other room rumbles clothes clean as it spins out water for the final spin.  I lay here on my couch thinking about my boys coming home soon for Christmas and how I will make poppy seed muffins because it’s Noah’s favorite….and how I haven’t made them in the two years since he left.

These small things?  They are my currency of grace from a place called Paradise.  And the ruler of it all looks down on me with love.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, come down from the Father of the heavely lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows.” – James 1: 17

I like how Tuesdays are laundry day for the preschool house on the grounds of the school where I work, and every time I walk in to get the bag full of the week’s wipe ups from snack time and painting projects, it’s story time and the kids are gathered round the teacher eager, necks craning to see the pictures as she holds up the book.  I close the door behind me on my way out and I smile at the warm I feel.

I look forward to the sameness of every morning when I wake the girl and she sleepy stumbles past me to her dressing room just off the kitchen, her eyes are slanty closed and she squeaks out “mornin.”  I ask her the questions.  “Sleep well?  Want some coffee?  What are you hungry for?”

I love how my co worker and I move around each other in the school kitchen like a well choreographed musical scene, each of us picking up where the other left off, the cheese cups all filled and put in rows just so, the dishes used and the dishes washed; scrub, rinse, santize, repeat.  I know where things are and I know how to use them, the hum of the place predictable and sure and comforting.

I like how Silas sits at the table in the school store, always first in the door. Erick drops his back pack and heads for the bean bag chairs in the corner, makeshift bed till the bell rings.  Tanner never fails to smile the brightest of smiles,  Emma and her young charge, Griffin, follow close behind.  She yearns to tell me what she’s dealing with and asks for advice.  She listens intently and nods her head and heads down the hall with a hug.  Shane sorts out the candy bowl, Neva never passes the door without coming in just to greet me.  These are the rhythms, the motion of the morning.  It feels familiar.  It feels like home.  I look for them like little beacons, assurances that I’m still on the path.

These “constants” are here for right now.  They’re like candles in the window, little heart smiles.  But next year, next month, next week, tomorrow……people move, kids grow up, clothes get outgrown, opinions shift, presidents get elected, supermoons come and go,  you used to not like sweet potatoes and then one day you try them and turns out, you changed your mind.

My soul longs for constant.  I stare out the window of my cozy sitting room, and look at the suns rays coming in as the day ends and begins to make ready to turn into Wednesday.  The heat lays on my skin and feels like a hug.  This changing world unnerves me sometimes.  I jump from rock to rock in the life puddle and balance myself just so, wanting to stay there.  And then the water washes up and I’m compelled to move on.  It presses on me, this thought that this world isn’t my home, no matter how good it gets, no matter how bad it gets.  It’s not where I will find that constant I feel hungry for.  I know Who is though, and I sing to Him to steady myself when the unsureness sets in.   ” I’m just a passin through.”

The days beat a faster cadence than they used to.  My daughter is a mama now, my granddaughter and her teeth and steps and words and sounds are the focus of much oohs and ahs.  She learns something every day.  My boys are men , the legos stored away and I wait eagerly for special times when they each come back “home” for visits and their deep voices and tall statures still take me by surprise.  I’ll see another girl get married soon, her hand taking hold of the man she’ll see changes with herself and off they’ll launch.  And it’s sunrise and it’s sunset.  And all is well, because He tells me He will still be there,

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
²⁶ They will perish, but you will remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
²⁷     but you are the same, and your years have no end.
²⁸ The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
    their offspring shall be established before you. Ps 102