Last night I remembered how much I love red wine.
Today, I opened my apartment windows for the first time this year & remembered how much I love natural, fresh air blowing gently around me.
I also remembered that I wasn't wearing pants, AND that my neighbor was outside working on his car…the two don’t really go hand-in-hand…
Lately I have been singing at the top of my lungs in my car (okay - mom van…it’s a work vehicle) to Spanish music (currently soaking up and trying to learn as much Spanish as possible…)
Right now I’m drinking dandelion tea and I have garlic chicken and zucchini noodles cooking on my cute little 1950’s style oven…
I’m also debating whether or not I should regret the java chip frappuccino I had for breakfast and the Dr. Pepper I had for lunch…(to be fair I did have chicken and steamed veggies with it…) or if I should excuse my weaknesses and consider it just part of my attempt at a “balanced” lifestyle…(who am I kidding…I know NO balance…)
I’m in the middle of a hilarious texting conversation with one of my best friends in the world, listening to John Mark McMillan and thinking about continuing to read the book that I am the middle of.
Life is good.
There is a food program at my work every week day where we pick up produce and bread from local grocery stores and hand it out to low income families. Each morning, I choose to hand out the flowers. I’ve never understood why I always choose handing out the flowers as my job. That is, after all, what the clients are the most picky about.
“I want that house plant.”
“I don’t want those red roses, I want the yellow.”
“Can you pull out the eucalyptus from the (tightly wrapped) bouquet? I’m allergic.” (so am I…)
And don’t even get me started on the loose flowers that we receive and how pesky they can be when trying to bundle them into their own little group…
And Lord please, please don’t let me be foolish enough to make them uneven. If this bundle has 8 flowers, then they all must have 8 flowers. To accept anything less than balance and perfection is a ridiculous thought.
I make the clients sound so ungrateful…haha and I promise you - that is NOT my intention. I’m simply just trying to make the point that…some may be a little picky at times haha.
Yesterday I was handing the flowers out as usual and I got down to the last few pathetic looking (lets be honest - dead and ugly) flowers. Usually when I get to that point, I just stop handing them out and throw the rest away because who wants to be handed 3 wilting, browning, flowers, while struggling to hold 2 bags full of groceries, 3 loaves of bread, 1 carton of eggs and a half-gallon of milk? I’d rather get nothing at all. And I’d be sure that the look on my face made whoever was handing me the 3 wilting flowers, felt stupid for trying to do such a thing, when they see how much I am struggling.
But not Sheila.
Sheila is a new face in the crowd at my work. Like many of our clients, Sheila lived comfortably and had a decent amount of money for the majority of her life. Until recently. An unexpected health issue and several Doctors visits for her husband, and Sheila now has to stand in a line she never dreamed of standing in and receive food from a program that she never thought she would have to be apart of.
Now that doctor bills are a factor, their $1,800 (total) of Social Security a month leaves them with little-to-nothing left over for food and other living necessities.
So here Sheila is.
And there she was yesterday morning as I was down to the last few wilted, browning, pathetic, dead flowers. I don’t know why I didn’t just throw them away…I think I just felt bad for the people who would have gotten nothing at all, somehow thinking that these ugly flowers were better than no flowers.
I picked up the yellow….daisy…looking one….the two floppy roses, and the last bit of greenery and handed it half-heartedly in Sheila’s direction.
Her smile was unreal.
“Oh my gosh, those are beautiful! I love yellow! Yellow is my favorite! Those are so beautiful! Thank you! Thank you so much! Have a great day!!”
I think I was more confused than anything.
Either Sheila was being completely sarcastic or Sheila crazy.
But that smile said it all.
I can’t get it out of my head.
Lately, I’ve had such negativity stuck in my head. Hurtful words have kept replaying. Insecurities have been haunting. Enough to where it has kept me from sleeping a night or two. Fear has curled up at my feet and, like my clingy, relentless three year old dog, has done everything it could to capture all of my attention.
But now, the only thing that has been stuck in my head, is Sheila’s smile.
How?
You have nothing but heartache and struggles - and I’m handing you something that was once beautiful, but is now ugly and smells like dirty, stale water.
And yet, not only do you smile - you THANK me. You genuinely thank me.
And you mean it.
This morning after we were cleaning up from the food program, I was speaking with one of the volunteers. Harold is an older man - maybe my grandfathers age. But you’d never know it. He has the charm and pep of a 30 year old man. And his heart is to just give, give, give. I constantly fear over-working him. He’s the one who shows up 45 minutes early to your previously scheduled meeting time and calls you 15 times asking where you are! haha…Harold is awesome.
A the end of our conversation I just looked at him and said, “It’s been a good morning.”
He agreed, “Yes it has. And it’s going to be a good day.”
“I hope so.” I replied.
“Oh it’ll be a good day. You know why? Because I’m choosing for it to be.”
I don’t know much about Harold’s life. And I don’t know too much about Sheila’s life either. But I do know that they both make the CHOICE to be positive. They make the CHOICE for each day, no matter what happens, to be a good day.
They CHOOSE JOY.
When I got off work this evening, something happened. Something incredibly small, yes, but something that would normally bring up insecurities and discomfort in me. Something that had the potential to cause my “good day” to completely do a 180 and destroy it. Normally I would think and rethink and rethink and keep rethinking about something like this, until it mentally exhausted and depressed me.
But I thought about Sheila and Harold. And how they, without meaning to I’m sure, flicked some switch inside of me and helped to encourage me to look at life a little differently. The small, effortless actions and words that took up a quick second of their energy, somehow made a HUGE and (hopefully) lasting impact on me.
Their strength is giving me strength.
How many people do I come into contact with each day where I have the opportunity to strengthen them in that same way?
It’s so exciting to think about. The purpose, responsibility, and opportunity that God gives us to ENCOURAGE people. To share JOY with them. To LOVE them. To help them rewire their thinking and look at life with a little more positivity and hope. To HEAL them.
I can’t help but think about how we are all on our own little journey…mostly stuck in our own little worlds, thinking (and caring) nothing about what is going on with the people around us…and if we would just make the conscious decision each day to stop looking at the negative around us, but to breathe in the things that give us hope and joy and life. No matter how simple these things are. How much lighter would we be? And how much lighter could we make others if we were to share that with them?
That’s my goal.
To look at dead, ugly, wilted, pathetic flowers and instead of seeing them for what they appear to be and what everyone else may see them as, to see my favorite color and an omen for a GOOD day.
