Not ending

He wrote me a letter without ending it. No good bye, no love, not even his name underneath, it was as if he just stopped writing, forgot all about it and instead to press ‘save as.. for now.. to finish it at a later time’ he pressed ‘send’. It was a letter written out of a saddened soul. It was a letter about aging and proximity of heart. About how with the footsteps following the clock forward he increasingly said goodbye to the fit person he once was, physically and mentally. Now he was just tired, and to his dismay also tired to have me around, not because of me, but because of him, because he just didn’t have anything to say any more. As if not just the lust of life dried up, but also the words inside. He lost the will to connect.

As I brusquely turned my head, said goodbye, walked out the door and got on my bike, I got an image of a wedding, and I saw how the best man took the groom aside to the closesd room with a lock on the door. They were all dressed up, hyped up, for the occasion, and here is the best man telling the groom what all this is doing to him. Is that allowed, or even appropriate? It made me think of a female friend who abruptly ended a what I thought was a friendship, after I had sent her a letter to let her know how much her new role as a mother had affected me. This isn’t about you, she had said, it is me who gave birth to a child. That incident caused me to ask my pregnant sister years later what I was expected to do when I came for a visit – I didn’t want to make the same mistake. She said: just say the baby’s cute and listen to the delivery story. And so I did.

When two years ago I lost the man in my life with whom I was verbally dearly intertwined, I lost exactly the person whom I needed to share this all with. I could have born the loss of Mike, if only I could have taken shelter under his arms. Then I would write him, telling him he died and that I am devastated over it. And then he would just write back, comfort me and all things would be a little bit more bearable. I did write the letter though. Just never sent it.

But then this one letter was sent. To me. The letter without an ending. And I wondered, does everyone has a right to his own feelings, his own desires, his own space? Even at the expense of others? How are we even to know what other’s expenses are? In his letter he wrote how he longed for going back in time, five years ago, and I knew why he wanted that, because five years ago he wasn’t as old as he is now. But for me those five years couldn’t be more in the past where I like to leave them shackled to time past, because five years ago I didn’t know God, five years I go I was selfmutilating, I was hopelessly unhappy and upon waking I hoped that it would turn evening soon, so I could go back to bed. And even though I grieve over the gap that has been exposed between him and me after me saying yes to Jesus, I will never go back to five years ago. How would I have reacted if he had written me a stern letter on how my conversion has affected him? And how does one prevent words that express a feeling to be interpreted as or turn into words of accusation? Would he have been able to handle me writing back, musing over or expressing myself on how all of this is for me? Ah, just some rhetorical questions.

My love for this man is beyond any rhetoric, and I swaddle myself in his memories about car trips we took together, so many mature years ago, where him and I were babbling together, making up new words and new sounds, having fun together. And I realize there will be no ending, him and I will always talk, in whatever new form we come up with.

Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing!

Corona closed the church doors, but it had the opposite effect on our faith, since we took the gospel with us, into the world, and now the good news is oozing out of almost every social media channel there is..Also the faith of many if not all christians only grew bigger, the same way the oppression of Gods people in Egypt only made them grow in number.

Satan should have read Gods word better, then he would have known the truth that God will build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mat.16:18).

Yes, we closed church doors, but you know what? God is not in the church, He is in our lives.
Yes, we respected social distance, but you know what? Faith cometh by hearing, not hugging.

We obey because Scripture tells us to. We are to submit to authority, for every authority is established by God (Rom.13:1).

But.. there is only one exception to obedience, and that is when the government’s word goes against God’s word, for example when a king issues a decree for killing all male babies at birth, or when a law says to bow down to or worship something or someone other than God.

We find another example in the New Testament, where Jesus was told to put a sock in His disciples’ mouthes, to silence their rejoicing and praising God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen (Lk.9:40). An influential group in the crowd said to Him: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” But Jesus answered: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

It was upon the praising, the shouting, the making noise that the walls of Jericho fell. Paul and Silas were thrown in prison because of their faith, but kept singing in shackles and eventually an earthquake rattled the foundations of that prison and, their chains broke lose and every prison door was opened.

The first song ever recorded in history is the song of Adam, when he saw the love of his life. It is no wonder that he sang, since man is made in the image of God; Adam is a spitting image of his Dad, for God sings too! (Zeph.3:17).

Singing is found throughout the Bible, but not as an option: singing is a command.

(Col.3:16; Eph.5:18-19; Js.5:13; Ps.105:1-2)

 

It is finished

In times of distance we may know ourselved embraced by a God who is so near, a God who not only is the Creator of heaven and earth, of daffodil and butterfly, of laughter and tear, the God who, as it were, went to His knees in the dust of a desert to commit Himself to His people, for eternity, wrapping them in a promise that He would be their caretaker, in both water, bread, provision and guidance. The God of Abraham, Izak and Jakob. They all said: I do.

My God. Your God.

A God who also wants to be a Father to us, a good Father, a Father who knows us so well that He already knows what we want to ask, even before we part our lips, and who still delights in hearing us say it, because that too, is relationship. A Father who not only knows our wants, but also our needs. A Father who can comfort beyond an external embrace, but can come and touch us in that place deep inside of us, where no human was ever allowed in. God never was a superficial God and His love isn’t skin deep either

This morning I woke up with three words buzzing around in my body, as if they were my alarm, on snooze mode. ‘It is finished’. Time and again I heard it, I felt it, I knew it, as a constant affirmative nudge.

It is finished.

In opening the news papers we can’t escape the slogan ‘the new normal’ and I thought how interesting it is to see society run rampant with dictionary words like that, maybe in an effort to get more grip on what’s going on, because if you can name it, you can claim it?

When I open my Bible however, I see a slogan that gives me peace and rest instantly, because I see a truth printed not just on paper, but engrafted in my heart, enscribed there by the author of my faith, the publisher of my book of life, and it is the slogan: ‘It is finished’.

Two thousand years ago Jesus spoke these words, spreading His arms wide, hanging on the cross, to embrace humanity for eternity. And I am so grateful for these last three months, because my skin hunger has led me undeniably and irreversibly closer to the One who will never let go.

אור

So many years ago there was a bleating in the flock. It was as if a blood covered sound dripped from the fence, one drop of pain struggling between gravity and it’s own desire to remain unmovable. Where does grief go when it’s born. Does it move? Does it grow? Or does sadness disappear when you do? God knows where He stores up the snow flakes and where the wind lodges, but where does He store grief? Did He invent it? Why? So we would turn to Him for comfort?

The bleating from a long ago echo wasn’t even grammatically correct, but oftentimes many soul cried roars won’t allow you to suffocatingly embrace them in rules of language, conduct or time. ‘I has sad’ the sheep said, years ago. He was in our bed, and we could see his eyes. He had seen too much, we knew, he had seen a double love that confused him and we knew that from this time on we could never protect him backwards. Things seen don’t disappear when you close your eyes. Sheep had seen the hurt in the eyes of the herder and had mistakenly taken over just about anything. Except for denial. Denial was always there. But in came in a disguise of absence.

Can sadness fly and land on you? Can sadness talk when you are up way before the clock wanted you to? Can you feed sadness? Can you kill it? Can we live with it? Can we use it for something good, someday? God promises and has shown that He can make miracles out of messes. Maybe He foresaw how we would excel in producing the latter.

Talk to me, not about me, the Herder said.

“Why did you make desires? Because mine hurt me. They make me sad. They give me grief. I has sad.”

The desires themselves don’t hurt you. The desires in and of itself aren’t good or bad. I didn’t design them to be categorized like that, in a vacuum. I designed them; by design they are good and perfect, the same way as you are by the way. You are my masterpiece, should you have forgotten it..

“But why do my desires hurt me?’’

You know that is not the right question, my sweet.

“Why do my desires hurt me now?”

Because of Me. Because now you take Me into account. You have had these desires before and back then you just went with them, not knowing what was right for you, not acknowledging Me, not knowing Me. And now you do, so it’s different for you now. It’s the way I intended it. An arm in itself isn’t good or bad. It doesn’t have an inherent quality attached to being just an arm. It’s what you do with the arm that makes it good or bad. You can use it to embrace the people I have put in your life, but you can also use it to hit them and hurt them. Same arm, different outcome. Desires work the same way.

“Did you put an intent behind a desire? Did you wrap purpose around it?”

I always do that, so the answer is yes, and I did that to make things more clear for you. I designed it all, remember? Otherwise it would be a gift for you, leaving you with an utter not-knowing how to unwrap it, or what to use it for. And because now you live in the world I created you to live in, you experience the rules that I set, the boundaries what I whispered into being, the laws that I wrote, the lines that I drew in the sand. I love it when you feel those laws, it delights Me, because they speak of Me, they whisper about My nature, they sing about the tiniest glimp of Me, this is part of who I am. I delight in you experiencing Me like this, because I am unseen. And now you see my laws because of your faith. I am very proud of you. This is what I was always looking forward for you to experience and when you were counting down the years and days to die, I in the most delightful way was doing the same, knowing that a different death would bring the life I wrote about you before the foundation of the earth. What satan tried to twist to your demise, I used to show My glory.

I not even going to apologize, and I’m just coming out straight to tell you that just get excited about stuff like that. Earlier, you lived in the world, and that’s not where I lodge. So you abode by those dark earthly spiritual rules you weren’t even aware of, but now you do, and what you call hurt is actually a battle. The grief is actually a war. And in a way yes, you are grieving, you are grieving your dead self. Loss is always sad. You can even mourn for something that you know you’re better off without. Look at how you are still mentioning Mike. I was with him when he died, I knew the place and time, and in his death, yes, I was firmly aware how I took him out of your life, and it was for a reason and one day you will understand that, but you’re still mourning over him. You have to understand: I didn’t grieve over Jesus’ death. I rejoiced over foreseeing His resurrection. I rejoiced over knowing that his blood would one day cover you.

“I am more alive than ever.”

You sure are.

“What do I do with these desires then, babba, because I see that they can only do harm. Me. Others.”

Give them to Me. I will keep them where I keep My snow flakes, where I keep the commands for the sequence of the tides around the shores of the Kiribati islands, I will put your desires in a place somewhere between the four ends of the earth and I will keep them safe for you. I will store them and I want to invite you to come to sit with Me from time to time, to just talk about them. Don’t deny what is there, my sweet, don’t deny what I create, because what I designed is beautiful and perfect and good, the key is for you to keep your eye on the realization that I am the Designer. Who better to talk to about it than Me?

About service

** Calling hairdresser’s **

Us: we would like to make an appointment with Micky
They: that’s fine, when does it suit you?
Us: somewhere next week in the afternoon, is that okay?
They: next week is fine, do you have a preference for a day?
Us: hmm.. Saturday?
They: she doesn’t work on Saturday
Us: Friday?
They: she has a day off then
Us: Thursday?
They: sure, what time?
Us: six pm please
They: she is booked at that time
Us: sometime else in the afternoon then?
They: I can only book you for 11 am.
Us: I can’t make it in the morning, how about Wednesday?
They: she is fully booked on Wednesday
Us: for crying out loud, could YOU then just give me the day and time that she is available in the afternoon?!

About forgiveness

The scene is a courtroom trial in South Africa:

A frail black woman about seventy years old slowly rises to her feet. Across the room and facing her are several white police officers. One of them is Mr. Van der Broek, who has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman’s son and her husband some years before. Van der Broek had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby. Several years later, Van der Broek and his men had returned for her husband as well. For months she knew nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, Van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. How well she remembers in vivid detail that evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, “Father, forgive them . . .”

Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr. Van der Broek. A member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”

I want three things,” begins the old woman calmly, but confidently.

“I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.” She paused, then continued.

“My husband and son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.”

She also stated that she wanted a third thing: “This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. Van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.”

As the court assistants came to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. Van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted. As he did, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbors—all victims of decades of oppression and injustice—began to sing, softly but assuredly, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Source: Joyce Meyer. Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone (Kindle Locations 1346-1354). FaithWords. Kindle Edition.

the lost sheep

I lost something this morning. Something that was very precious to me. It put me in a glass ball with water and mud and I found myself tumbling from side to side, not knowing which way was up, only to be confounded by something that I could not break, or see. Was it my own imagination? My own will? My own desire? My focus? How come a person can never decide to fully stop breathing even though you can’t hear a thing under water, so you could easily fool yourself?

It’s just a stuffed animal.. it is not alive, it’s filled with liveless material and covered with liveless material. It’s liveless.

And it’s lost.

Yesterday someone  said that the sheep looked straight into her soul. I immediately knew what she meant, because yeah, I nodded, this is what my sheep do, all of them actually, this is what people always told me, when they read my sheep stories, that it seemed so real, and that my flock really seemed to have this bond with me. And I with them. Maybe it was the way I photographed them, but there was just something about my sheep,.. and as I pondered further, I noticed my focus drifted towards them again, and I longed talking with them and to them again, like I did for years, disregarding a weird frowning from my sister..

You do know that they don’t really talk, she said.
You do know they are just stuffed animals, right?

I nodded. And at the same time I knew it was more than that. They were with me before I knew God was and they have helped me through some awful dark stuff. It’s been the sixth week of corona here and I feel alone, my skin hurts because it hasn’t been held by anyone for 3.628.800 seconds and counting. But as the clock moved forward, I was stopped and positioned on this fork in the road, where I had to choose, left or right, do I go back on that road again, seeing what this person saw, how the sheep looks into souls. Or do I to the other way, because sheep don’t look into souls, it’s just a stuffed animal. Can I even go that road, having seen what she saw?

Suddenly I woke up, drenched in clammy sweat, without him. He is lost.

It’s almost absurd, because it made me stop functioning properly almost immediately. I can’t breathe, I need to find him first. I will resume breathing when I do. I let go of almost everything that I knew was truth and I searched in seven places more than six times. Did I misplace him? Lose him? I don’t even lose my nail piercing, I don’t lose nothing, ever. The hurt of not knowing where he was, was so visible, that it clouded my eyes and brain, it fogged my heart, it weighed on my chest, it hurt my skin..

..just breathe baby girl..

I went to the only place I knew he would not be, hoping he would be there, but he wasn’t. I thought this is what God does, isn’t it; He will leave behind everything and everyone to chase the one.. everysheep..

Do I chase after God as fervently as He does me?
Do I chase after God in the same relentless manner as I do my liveless idol?

How come I only now notice that my focus is off lately? Did I need to be on the go -searching- and stopped – hurting- to see that I was just leaning against a rock near the signpost, not even making a decision to go left or right? I found a note on the dusty ground scribbling that someone felt physically so dried up that she almost climaxed looking at a handsome man’s smile. So that is what she did from time to time. Where was my focus? Did it shift to video editing, putting in millions of seconds of work playing Martha for my Jesus?

Why don’t you talk to or with Me?
Why don’t you listen to Me?

When I imagine being pulled out of the muddy water, I am just filled with and covered in silence, oh, the amount of silence there is! The dusty note continued, scribbling how it was so amazing to see this young persons hungry for God and how she was the same in the beginning. In the beginning, she thought, but not now any more? Did she lose a spark, a love, who turned down the heat from hot to luke?

God does chase after me that way, as reckless as I left my flock behind to find this particular one, because I sure got at least 99 back home, the same way God leaves His 99, because one is lost, and it needs to be found. I lost the one, and that is where my focus was on. The one. I can’t buy a new one, sure, I can, there is probably another one out there, but it is not the same as this one, in the same way I am unequivocally, undeniably irreplacable for God. He made me one of a kind. If I get lost, there will be no replacement found. On purpose I stopped saying the sheep’s name out loud, because I didn’t want to go back that road again, you know, the way of seeing my flock come alive again, but apparently that wasn’t enough to distance myself from him. Sorry: it.

It really hurts. Physically, literally, pain in my chest, tears in my eyes, as if something has been torn off of me. It reminds me of the harsh black and blue and white light that came on in my heart the moment I heard Mike died. Was I clinging to him way too much, and did the same happen with my sheep? That Mike was blotted out of my book of life, the same as with this sheep, because God chases me recklessly, and He wants me for Himself? He is a jealous God, this I know.

Open the cutlery drawer.

Nah, I would never keep my sheep in that drawer. Near my spoons? That is just weird.

Open the cutlery drawer.

 

About words

What’s in a word.. change a word and you change how you perceive reality. Speak that word and you will change the world..

What once was called perversion is now called an alternative lifestyle.

What can be called exploiting the poor is termed the lottery.

What about rewarding laziness? Just call that welfare.

And killing our unborn? Oh, call that choice.

Attacking abortionists is not attacking, that’s just justifiable.

Neglecting to discipline our children is framed as building self-esteem.

People are abusing power and call it politics.

Public funds that are embezzled are called essential expenses.

We have institutionalized bribery but started calling it office sweets.

When you covet your neighbor’s possessions people just can justify that by simply seeing it as ambition.

When you pollute the air with profanity and pornography; that’s just freedom of expression.

How a but is just flipping the bird

If you’re saying ‘yes, but..’ you are actually saying ‘no, because..’

Wanna you go to the movies with me tonight?
Yes, but I don’t have time.

Oh, go tomorrow then?
Would love to, but I am running quite low on money.

I’ll pay for it?
That is so kind of you, but there aren’t any good movies out right now.

People have two measuring sticks that they carry through life with them. To lean on. To beat with. One is for judging themselves and one is for judging the world around them. Many times the two don’t measure up. People want to do two things in the world: they want to see rules followed and they want to be the exception to the rule.

Of course people should be fined for stealing! People shouldn’t steal. All for harsh punishments! BUT in my case, I have all these context excuses and circumstances and I really believe the law doesn’t apply to me now. And with the same fierceness that you want the other people hung for stealing you now plea for not being hung. The law applies to anyone of course. Except to you. Of course.

And you see the same thing going on in friendships.

Besides the hollowing of the concept of friendship since the birth of Facebook, where people just can’t seem to react normally and verbally but as if they were robots just push a thumbs up button – even for announcements of someone’s passing, which we find to be utterly distasteful, that is the thumbs up from the reader and the fact that the writer can’t even bother to actually send a card to someone personally letting him know of a tragic incident, but those people are probably the same ones who let the world know who they are having sex, when you see a Facebook status change from single into ‘its complicated’, or it’s that specific group of people who think they are being social by tagging 213 friends to wish them a very personal new year – end of sidetracked rant – and one of its afterbirths being the verb ‘to unfriend some’. ‘Unfollow.’

I am not judging you as a person, but I will unfriend you if you keep writing MAGA.

Or

If you don’t like what I say about Trump, then move.

These are not our lines, but they do get a point across. My way or the highway. It’s absolutely disgusting that after we couldn’t control our curiosity and looked it up online, we now actually know what MAGA means. This will probably stick with us for a long time, oooh, if only we could change our diet so subtly that the one brain cell holding this piece of information would just die off.

But here’s the thing. The people who feel cramped in their style because other people have a different opinion about a certain topic, feel as if they have all the right in the world to unfriend these people, to unfollow them. Even without notice, because, no, you don’t tell this person personally, you just write it on your own wall, being in your egocentric palace, thinking that all of your 994 friends will be interested in reading what you say and also are experts at reading between the lines, knowing immediately you are talking to them specifically while all you do is sigh out loud about something that bothers you.

Where is the communication?

These are the same people who get upset when they see their 994 contact friends dropping without notice. Who unfriended me?! Where did he or she come off doing that?! Did you unfriend me because I used the word sex? Really? Then we’re better of as unfollowers yes. If I’d known you’d take offense, I wouldn’t have become friends with that one mouse click in the first place. But you don’t know why your friends list decreased, because those people also sighed on their wall about you. Not to you of course. Because hey, this is the internet, people, let’s refrain from everything that remotely resembles human and decent behavior.

Who’s with us?
Just give a thumbs up. Or a finger.

About light(en)ing up

Yesterday we bought bicycle lights. Cheap ones, easily attachable to the steering wheel and to the back of the bike, with a small battery inside already. You just press ’em and there they go, white or red (that immediately solved our question which light belonged where..front or back..)

After one hour of cycling, we came home, and wanted to press them off again, which we couldn’t. The back-light that is. Press, press, press (cursing a bit), press (okay, lesson in patience here..) press.. Finally the light was off.

When we wanted to try if it was the way we pressed it, that we somehow put the wrong pressure or had our thumb slightly in the wrong position, we pressed it once again, to try to get it lit again. Couldn’t succeed. Press press press. Deciding to not curse. Press press press. But the light didn’t come on again.

What went through our minds was this:

* We threw away the receipt, so we can’t go back to the store with the lights to return or change them.

* They weren’t that expensive, just buy new ones and be done with it. Don’t wanna be standing in line again.

But we were upset, that even though they didn’t cost much, we thought that doesn’t allow the world to sell us crappy things. The wrapper promised us at least 100 hours of light. We got one.

And then a ‘he’ interfered. We heard our ‘old self’ brainstorming about what we formerly would have done: go to the store, get a new one off the rack, buy that one, secretly swap the bad light for the good light when outside, go back in WITH the receipt, and get a new pair of lights, so now that we would have two working pair.

Or.. we would go back to the store, to the rack, secretly put the broken light in the wrapper of a new pair of lights in the shop and take out a new one and walk away.

Because we thought if we are honest with the customer service person and she still refuses to help us, then we cannot do that buy-and-return-trick any more, nor keep lingering in the store.

Cycling to the store we felt ourselves get more upset by the yard. The closer we got to the store, the angrier we were. About being mistreated even before we were actually mistreated!

Then we heard the ‘he’ say: “let’s try it differently this time, you with me on this one?”

We felt old and new collide somehow and our first reaction was NO. We didn’t see how things can turn out any differently than all our brain cells had already anticipated and calculated. Then the ‘he’ whispered again, in the heart, saying ‘trust me’. It was like the ‘he’ said: ‘if you approach people thinking they are not to be trusted, you block the chance of them showing you differently, have you tried being honest with the sales person?’

And while cycling to the store, we got into some sort of fight with this ‘he’, but perhaps it was just our interpretation as we usually (or tend to) interpret someone replying to us as if they are picking a fight (or that it can easily turn into one). Not trusting the other person that much (therapy anyone?).. at least not that they have good intentions to begin with.

But the ‘he’ didn’t let go. ‘Just humor me on this one, love, trust me for a change, the only thing that can happen is you lose that money and you already were willing to pay that amount again for a new pair of lights, so it can’t get any worse than that, right? Trust me on this one, it’ll cost you 5 dollars tops. Let’s do it differently this time. Let’s try the honest approach. It’s just a light.’

We felt ourselves grumbling. No. No. We don’t want this. Because if the sales person says no, then it’s not fair, because if we had kept the receipt we would have gotten a new light, and the store will probably be this not-accommodating for a real person to just believe a real person’s word, trusting that truth is being spoken and that the light really and truly was bought there yesterday.

He: ‘Trust me.’

Us: No, I want to do it my way.

‘Try me.’

– I don’t see any influence you can have.

‘Trust me, this is what you have been praying for, right? For me to show myself to you? Here I am. Trust me.’

And with everything in ourselves feeling that NO, we did YES.

Expecting absolutely nothing, but still angry with this ‘he’ somehow, we felt like a small child that did something he didn’t want to do but deep down knew that it was the right thing, but because it didn’t come from himself he thought he had the right to be grumpy about it.. when we arrived at the store, we walked in, got a new pair of lights off the rack, took our pair out of our pocket, even there thought about switching the broken one and walk out, but we didn’t, and while saying okay, okay, okay, okay, I am just going to do what you say, we walked to the counter.

There we saw a familiar face. Whut??!

I know you! We bought these lights with you yesterday!

She remembered us . Yes, we had a funny conversation yesterday about how weird it is that people buy so much stuff for other people and rarely treat themselves, and then I mentioned knit Christmas balls, and she mentioned a cousin who made crochet dresses for Christmas balls and that I said that getting a knit Christmas ball is always better than having to wear a full knit Christmas sweater. We knew her. And she us! Oh ma’am, this light doesn’t work, I bought it yesterday, but I threw away the receipt, so now I can’t prove that I bought it yesterday, nor that I bought it at your store.

She replied: ‘Oh honey, these things break all the time, they’re fragile, no problem, you can just take this new pair to swap it with.’

We were stunned. Absolutely stunned.

Absolutely.

We think that we had the biggest smile and biggest eyes of everyone in that store, and walked out the slowest, not knowing how to put our feelings or thoughts into some sort of coherent thing.

‘Trust me’, He said.

He gave us light.

(and they work!)