Thoughts on a Friday

Friday morning at home and experiencing that little bit of quietness before hitting the day full on. Buddy is asleep on a soft throw and for breakfast, I didn’t practice any good guidelines of Resolve. My breakfast today consisted of a Valentine cookie, banana and Diet Coke.
The bad choice of breakfast must be the remaining hangover from too much free food yesterday. The kindness of church members buying our breakfast and other members stopping by with sandwiches, cheese, fruit, and the making for ham or roast beef sandwiches. Our office suite celebrated Secret Saint during the days leading up to Valentines. The big reveal was yesterday afternoon and we had so much fun with that. Days like yesterday need to be remembered because a lot of days I feel like my job is nothing more than being a maid, cleaning up messes or a messenger and they shoot the messenger don’t they? In our staff meetings we are playing Mystery Guest game again. We answer a bunch of questions and when it is read, we have to guess who it is. The last question was what Bible character do you identify with? I almost put John the Baptist. Why? Sometimes I am the lone voice; I prepare ye the way and then get my head taken off over miscues or misunderstandings. Doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough.

Happily, I am able to tell you of a good choice I made yesterday. I left the office loaded down with extra stuff from Valentines which included my flowers from Roy and a lovely arrangement of miniature roses from Carolyn. My thoughts were to put everything up before going to the mailbox and to the office to pick up a package. I never know how to say this but I heard in my spirit the Lord directing me not to go upstairs, but to go through the courtyard to the mailbox. He said the widow lady will be sitting there at a table by the pool all by herself. You are to give her that little bouquet of roses. I debated for a second whether or not I should do that. I stopped debating and obeyed. I found myself lugging all my junk through the doors to the courtyard, past the may or maybe not phone sex condo to see the widow sitting at the table with her back to me. She turned her head and looked at me. I came up to her and wished her a Happy Valentine’s Day. And then I said I would like to give you this bouquet. It is from my friend Carolyn and me. The widow was overjoyed and she gushed over the beauty of the flowers alternating with the question, are you sure? Of course. She must have said three times, oh thank you. Nobody remembered me today. Idiot girl that I am, I should have said well God remembered you. He knows all about you. I hope I didn’t miss an opportunity to share the Gospel with her or maybe it is a seed planting experience.

I need to remember that moment. Being obedient was so joyful. I came in and called Carolyn to share with her how her thoughtfulness to friends and coworkers was used in God’s economy to bless a lonely widow. It was an ordinary moment in a day. God has laid on me these past few weeks the importance of excelling in the ordinary, embracing the moment.


We hear so much these days of being purpose driven, to dream big, to believe God for the Big, and all that is fine and good. Seems to me I should be focusing on the daily whether I am walking life out purposeful or not, with dreams large or small, and in the midst of the ordinary seeing how big God is in moments. A lot of those moments you will find me being impatient, annoyed, put out or angry. Moments that all too often string together to make hours of me thinking only of myself and how is the outcome is going to effect or affect since I can’t remember which one is correct right now, me.

**I am now home after being out and about most of the day. When I left this morning, the widow walked past me, stopped and thanked me again for the flowers. When I came home she was sitting at the poolside table working a puzzle. I went into the office to pick up some deliveries. Fern was there along with the office staff. They all said, we hear you are giving out bouquets of flowers. Such a small gesture has made a big impact. I know that God will see to it that I run into Marie, I found out her name, again and again. I hope she sees Jesus in me and I look forward to telling her about Him or it could be even reminding her that He loves her so much. Honestly, I have always avoided her, she seemed so needy to me. And you know what, she is. She needs just a little attention now and then. We all do. The Lord is reminding me it takes so very little to be ordinary. **