Days of Strength

This last week I've been more conscious of being held in Mary's hand.

Not to say everything's gone smoothly: it hasn't. But that doesn't seem to be a factor, really.

Not only have I been more conscious of a sense of peace, of not being in control, of having surrendered control, but paradoxically that's put me more in control. It's made it easier to make choices that don't have to be dead right, don't have to be perfect. They just have to be the best choice for right now.

I've also been more aware that as I seek people, places and situations which are my answers, so may I be someone else's answer.

To have someone choose me---improbably, in context, someone they don't really know---to talk to about specific problems in their life, or places where they're feeling inadequate, when they had no way of knowing that their road is a road I've travelled, that I would be someone who might have a word or two that could help.

It's funny: we notice when other people seem to us to have been sent by God to be an angel in our pathway, expressly to help us out. But it's rare that we're given the gift to notice that we ourselves may have been sent to be standing in a particular place, at a particular time, because God knew someone was going to need us to be there. Not to do anything dramatic---not to put out a fire, rescue a baby, do CPR, but just to say the right words to ease someone else's mind, to feed someone else's spirit.

When you can feel God working in your life, that conveys a certain peace, a certain joy.

And like everything else in life, we tend to take it for granted when it happens, when things are going well. But like perfect spring days, a baby's laugh on a summer day, the rush of first falling in love, it's not a feeling that's going to be sustained. And it needs to be cherished when it happens.

Partly because we do---I do---far too little appreciating the good moments while they're happening, although I get better at it as I get older. But also because the memory of the warm moments feeds us when we're in the cold and dark..........