“Should I do more?” I asked myself and then my husband.

I turned onto the road to my home and saw a clump of something ahead on the side of the road.

A figure, not a pile of wood, I realized as I got closer.

A young woman with hair the same color as mine, dressed in flannel with black and red and sitting staring straight ahead, her knees drawn into her chest.

In front of our home is a wide empty field with freely growing trees once cut down and now growing.

The high grass is gold and it bends and straightens with the wind.

This young woman sat still.

I turned and turned off my car in the driveway, deciding I’d check on her.

I’m not proud to tell you I thought about putting my purse safely inside the front door, tucking my keys and phone in my pocket. I thought for a second she might be violent.

I knew she’d been struggling, been seen roaming and had been hospitalized for addiction before.

And I knew and know what addictions can do for someone who needs what they need.

So, I thought she might be aggressive.

Then, thank you Lord, I decided differently. I walked to end of the drive, the wind like ice on my face. Quietly, almost like I was sneaking,

I asked, “Are you okay?” and she picked up her body slowly and she walked away.

Slowly, like a crawl, her steps kept on until I could no longer see her as I peered through the window in our garage.

“Should I do more?” I wondered again. Then decided I would simply pray. I could pray.

Pray without her knowing, without me needing her to know.

Because once, a very, very long time ago, I drove my little blue Celica all the way to Tybee Island in the cold.

I sat on the hard empty shore.

I sat and stared toward the ocean for I don’t know how long.

And then, I suppose emptied of some of my thoughts, my sorrows, my questions…I drove back to my imperfect life, my imperfect home, my still present struggles.

I’m remembering that day today.

Knowing it was bravery for me to sit oddly on the beach alone.

It was resourceful. It was deciding I could in fact, go on.

And no one told me so, other than myself.

I hope I get to see the young woman again. I hope God gives me a way to help her see her I’m pulling for her…

Pulling for her to decide she can go on knowing there is meaning and purpose she has not yet known.

That she may recall moments of feeling purposeless and searching for what seems too far to reach.

Maybe God will make a time for me to tell her, this young woman staring into the open and broken down field.

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬