Simple Sunday, sort of melancholy for family the way it used to be and a revisiting of a time in a big old house of twenty-something year old girls, free as birds in a tiny country town. Walking for the sake of  “staying active” and feeling just as old…I was listening to random Pandora music, unsatisfied by the feel, the mood.

When just like that I hear the velvet rasp and sweet take me back there words of James Taylor:  “You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am I’ll come runnin’…Winter, Spring, Summer or  Fall, all you gotta do is call. And I’ll be there, yes I will, you got a friend.” 

I stopped where I was, my heart filled with smiles and listened, head turned up towards the bluest of blue Fall sky.

I was back in the country, girls riding around on a Sunday afternoon, singing and living life in the moment…me and Mel, the friend of who taught me to live fearlessly, wholeheartedly and with no reservation. 

Going back to Georgia in my mind. 

A song and a time, at just the right time to remind me, I’ve got a friend.

God is good. Friends close in heart though separated by time and distance are good.

Looking and listening for good.

So, my  very favorite Dr. Seuss book is My Many Colored Days…a book about emotions. Yes, I think about emotions, feelings, I notice expressions. I sometimes get stuck in the funk of sad stuff. I am embarking on a challenge that is something I keep coming back to, God is good and has good for us. I will blog for 31 days about this thing I can’t let go, this reassurance, this conviction. God is good.

Grey day, happy, sunny, yellow day, bright red, angry day… I’m gonna be looking for the good. It’s timely for me to look for good. It’s an intervention of sorts.

Goodness today: I woke well-rested and placed worries and anxieties aside because after pouring out my heart to a friend, I know she prayed. And then,I prayed and I slept and on my way to work recalled, my friend always calls just when I’m about to cave. She calls and she listens and says, “You don’t sound good.” I say, “I’m better now.”

God is good and has good for us.

Count on it.

Look for it.

I have lost my foundation. My base, the concealer of the lines, the spots, evening tool of the uneven tone of my face has been misplaced, thrown away or left somewhere. So, the past couple of weeks I’ve gone back to the powder…the kind my grandma used to carry in her purse to dull the shine. I had two or three times I was in front of people, talking, being the focus of their eyes and I needed my foundation. All I could think is I bet they wonder why my face is so pale. I’m pretty sure though, they didn’t. Still, I needed my dewy foundation.

My eyes though were bluer and my lips were sort of a crimson hue against the powdery complexion, not the subtle presentable, but not glaringly made up face like usual. I just felt a little too visible…too on display. I prefer the “not sans makeup but simple face”. Silly, I know; but I felt like everybody noticed my face, my  blue eyes, my too red lips.

Never one to beg for heads to turn, I wanted to get back to subtle, necessary, just enough to be presentable face.

I went about my day on Tuesday, preparing for a long day, speech then late meeting, hair, makeup, outfit to last the duration. Stopping mid-morning to purchase stamps, check mail, I held the door for a woman pushing a cart with bags, an umbrella, a variety of stuff.

“Thank you, mornin’.” she said, head down. I hesitated because her cart was stuck, one of the wheels jammed. I reached down, helped her ease it in the door and her eyes met mine. “Thank you.”she said and smiled at me. “You’re welcome, have a good day.” I added.

She had beautiful eyes and hair pulled into a bun. Dressed in tennis shoes and simple clothes, she was making her daily trek downtown. I had seen her walking before; but had never had a chance to speak or to see her face, her condition…a growth of some sort. I think it might be called a gouter; but, something makes me hope we don’t use that word. I’m sure there’s a medical word for the protrusion that covered the entire side of her face. Yet, she smiled and met my eyes on a day like any and all of her days.

She rises every morning and she greets the day having looked into a mirror and accepted her face, her offering of herself to her day. Not, unlike me in preparing for the day, but with a malady more significant than misplaced cosmetic or too pale face.

And so, I stopped looking for my foundation and I have been looking for her. I want to happenstance have our paths cross. I want her lesson to me to be revisited, remembered. I want to know her story. I want her to raise her head, her eyes meet mine and for my face to say to her, “You are beautiful, from the inside out.” I hope to see her soon, I am looking for God to place her on my path to remind me of what beauty looks like.

People look at the outward appearance,  but the Lord looks at the heart.  I Samuel 16:7

Today, a friend struggled to be brave.  He shared his story of loss. I cringed for him, facing strangers…to advocate his cause.

We both agreed, God is sovereign and when nothing else makes sense we know God is sovereign and he sees us, survivors on the shores of damaging storms. We will see the beauty in the aftermath. In the meantime, God is patient and sovereign.

 Grief is a maze. God is steady, ever present as we meander.   Praying for my friend tonight and his bravery in talking about the enigma of suicide.

This morning, I woke up renewed. I cannot say why…my mind was just open to good, to God.

All the struggles, the questions, the disappointments were shifting towards clarity. Acceptance of my now and belief in the good to come…come what may.

My thoughts, in the quiet of the morning were towards acceptance.

In my morning time, moving past the understandable outcomes, not expected,  I began to accept things will be different than I anticipated…

That friends may not be friends, just people in a place in common with me. Just passing conversations and connections that took a turn away…a different path than mine when life altered our “things in common”

That people are unfortunately looking for their best for their glory and it’s okay that they are not traveling alongside me.

And then,  when said friends regret our distance, it is grace that compels me to listen, to engage in their  “coming to terms” with our friendship…and to forgive, to extend grace.

And to be stronger and wiser and without remorse…because by the time forgiveness and relieving of tensions was asked for and given, I had already moved past sadness, and remorse.

So, grace comes easy to the ones who hurt us…because grace, mercy, and love have come to us. It is easily given…no strings, just given, just Jesus-like grace. It’s the “love one another, forgive as I forgave grace.”

It’s effortless.

It’s without reason or rationale.

Grace doesn’t dwell on hurts.

 Accept apologies when they catch you by surprise.

Especially when they surprise you.

GRACE I have been given GRACE I give.