Months ago, we reintroduced ourselves in the parking lot. They were a family. She had a baby in her arms and another on her hip. The oldest, a boy was clinging to her legs, locked arms holding with all his little might.

A man stood by. He allowed our brief catching up, listened as she answered timidly, not meeting my eye, that she was okay. I watched all of them pile into a tiny car and slowly drive away.

She was a tough one, struggled to make up her mind that life could be better. She didn’t stay long, only enough time to bring her tiny firstborn into the world.

Then, she left the shelter, starry-eyed over her aims to try to have a “family”.

The next time I saw her, she was running the register and she saw me before I saw her. Face down and eyes of a child who’d been discovered in the wrong, she tentatively said hello.

Again, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes.”

“I’m working here now and I like it and the babies are okay.”

Smiles and see you soons were exchanged.

Yesterday, she sat on a pale pink bicycle, its basket loaded with groceries. I hurried up to see her. We talked about her bike, how much I loved it, old fashioned cruiser, no gears, simple and sort of cool.

She told me she needed it for work and how she’s not too far away but had been missing work, just came back after her daddy passed away.

Her face was stoic. He had been in a bad car accident and he never got better. I told her I was sorry.

I noticed the box of “Nutty Buddies” and thought she better get home, but she kept talking and the resolve despite her grief and trials was in her eyes, meeting mine and wide opening up with determination.

She told me she’d seen another of the shelter’s residents, this woman I thought had successfully moved on in work and raising her daughter.

She told me, “No, I don’t know what happened.”

“Well, I hope I see her too.” I said as I thought of how I wished she’d been able to stay stable, to stay in the “better than before”.

We said goodbye and I watched her cross four lanes of traffic towards her home.

I wondered about the man/father of the babies. I wondered about the other woman who has fallen back into hardship. I wondered if I should have driven her home.

For a second, I thought about the one I thought would make it, the old language of programmatic inputs and outcomes and for another second, I felt I’d failed her.

Then thought of a word God woke me with a few days ago, “shifting” and how everyone grows and then maybe dries up, withers and then along comes a little grace and rain and look it’s breaking through the hard earth, the left alone to rest soil.

Growth.

We shift to better in a moment, an hour, a day or sometimes after a long hard season of barrenness or mistakes of our making.

Acquiescence, a beautiful (even if reluctant) acceptance that may not make sense to others, but brings light and peace, resilience to our faces.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Blue Ribbon Girl” was painted a few years ago to remember the college girl who left art and after a bit of life and shifts, is finally home.”

What’s your story? Your home?

Find your way back.

Grow as you go.