My great pleasure…

I noticed that she had left the hair dryer on the sink counter.

My heart immediately hurt. You see, yesterday I had the unique gift of time with my little girl, Krits.  For ten plus hours we shared a ride together, we drove 700 hundred miles from her home in Ohio to her new one in God’s country.  After we arrived and I checked in to my hotel, we had dinner with three of her best friends that I had heard so much about, but had never met.  We TALKed.   I observed, and they smiled and laughed with each other for what seemed like seconds but was actually hours.

The night ended, they got into their cars and I said another good bye to my little girl, Krits.  We hugged.  I held her just a second longer and actually caught myself missing her before she had even left.  I told her happy birthday for like the millionth time and watched her buckle up and turned to go.  She is on her builder’s journey and nobody told me that it would hurt me to be so happy for another’s discovery.  It just does.

This morning I noticed the hair dryer and my mind and heart instantly went back to her presence with me for those many hours just yesterday.  My heart soared just a bit more as I began to think about the blessing of hearing her heart for writing, her heart for adventure, her heart for not settling, her heart for growing, and her heart for her family and her friends.  Yesterday, I invested ten hours traveling with a very special young woman and it was my great pleasure.  It just was.

Yesterday’s joy became today’s pain.  Choose to give your heart to another and you are choosing to hurt. Choose this pain.  I believe, you and I were made for this.  I just do…

God, thank you for the gift, thank you for loan, thank you for the painful reminders, thank you for the blessing of “being with,”  and thank you for the pleasure, for the joy, that comes when we slow down and really connect.

God, thank you that you made us for more than work.

God, thank you that you made us for OPUS.