God's Gifts in Waiting

I would love, for one day, to see God's angels. What do you think they are busy with today? Guiding hands away from germy shopping carts? Covering careless sneezes with their wings? Cooling fevers with a touch, and breathing their breath into people when a machine is failing? I have no idea! I do know that I wish I saw that side of the universe as real. I wish I truly believed that God will get this crazy world back to normal, not presidents or scientists. I wish I believed that it would be EASY for God to do that. On the Haitian news right now there is so much talk of keeping the borders shut for months yet... How the pandemic over there is just around the corner... It's coming! It will hit! It's coming! Haiti isn't ready! We're all going to die! If the virus doesn't kill us we'll starve from no work! My fiance hears all this at work every single day. In US, the news seems to be just a lot of fighting about what to do, which I'm sure stems from fear also. Then I take a slow look around me... The birds are still singing, the sky is brilliant blue, and the leaves swaying in the tiniest breeze make perfect shadows on the grass. A butterfly flutters over a clump of phlox that popped up out of nowhere, just like every other spring. I take a walk under the same stars every night, and they shine bright and clear. So who's running this show? I wish I could truly believe that God is. Especially in my season of life. It's hard to keep the facts straight... Number one that God does want me to marry Zèzè. Getting married is normal and God created it... It's not some crazy impossible desire I have that I have to fight with God about until maybe he might give in if I'm lucky. If you married the boy next door, that's great, you'll never have to understand this, but for me it's been a huge thing to grapple with. I don't feel like a princess happily being carried away by prince charming, I think I feel more like Jacob in the Bible. "I will not let you go until you bless me!" Maybe I should have piled up altars as monuments like Jacob did. I would have quite a few, and in some strange places! The circle where I walked past school and around to our house every night... The swingset at school... A little country cemetery that I ended up in last summer after just getting in my vehicle and driving to try to get my mind straight... The blueberry bushes where I picked for hours last summer and got willing to teach school again... The yard where I raked leaves and tears after coming home from our Mexico Christmas vacation... So many wrestling matches I have had with God about this. Letting go of Zèzè's safety, his financial situation, and now any sort of normal wedding plans or any date of seeing him again is hard. And the thought keeps coming, does God actually want this? Will it happen? Was that time on the road in front of the orphanage over a year ago when I said goodbye to him... forever? Why does that thought loom in my head over the promises of the Bible, and also the positive proof along the way that this is his will? Why do I think it will be hard for God to let us get married? I guess just because it looks hard to me! I see the president in Haiti like Moses saw Pharaoh... "LET MY PEOPLE GO," and the virus like the country crawling with frogs... Doesn't this whole situation seem just about that bizarre? So yes, I wish I could see the angels. See how effortlessly God is controlling the universe, moment by moment. But there are things I can see. Last summer when I was fighting my Battles Among the Blueberry Bushes, I listened to Ann Vozcamp's One Thousand Gifts. On a whim, I started a list in my phone called God's Gifts in Waiting. The embarrassing thing is that when everything is great, the list stays dormant, but during times like now, when I have to dig a bit to be OK, out it comes and I realize it's a good habit to have. It's like a diary of sorts actually, so I'll share a bit with you today: 585. Plenty of clorax, unlimited well water 586. Vinegar citrus diy cleaner (fill a jar with citrus peels, add vinegar to fill, wait a few days before dumping out the citrus peels for a good smelling basic, almost free cleaner) 623. Black stainless steel French press and the energy juice it yields 655. A hammock hour (Rich Hill did you know how much this would mean for my mental health??? I'm taking it with me and Mom bought Zèzè a double one so the addiction will be continued) 712. Potato roses (slice really thin potatoes and curl them around in a muffin tin... Oh yes potatoes can be romantic) 714. Two more cute little flour sack bags (I just love all my little market bags made with flour sack towels and calico... Addicting to make) 716. Little walk in the sun in zezes sandals 717. Beeswax wraps (alternative to saran wrap, ziploc, or tin foil... Wow I was busy as a bee that day! But we love them and the kitchen is actually wax free again.) 718. Lotion bars (my first one is almost gone already, Mom's too) 719. The smell of rose infused oil 720. The feel of crumbling dried petals 721. The smell of raw cocoa butter 722. And a family member's willingness to share her beeswax 724. Blackberry tea in a sugar rimmed goblet 725. Black kids on bikes (Horse riding thru the hood or whatever you wanna call it lol... I call it cute kid hunting. These kids!!... One looked just like Miche from the O... We were going to get ice cream and I told him that and he peddled away furiously announcing, "They goin' ta DQ wid the hosses!" You don't know how big I smiled.) 726. The man whose mower had the 'Rona (Also black. He pulled up to the repair shop while we were waiting for Adriana to get back with the ice cream. Said he was at the ER for mowers. His mower had the virus and he poured hand sanitizer in the engine but it didn't work. I said, you should have made it wear a mask, and he laughed like I was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. How in the world did I live in an all white state for so long?????) 728. Cast iron pizza (we even did chicken with balsamic vinegar glaze and oh I wanted to be sitting on a little red chair in Kansas City eating the best pizza in the world but even tho ours wasn't like that I felt accomplished) 729. A pineapple spear and a talk with the folks who gave it to me (still don't know the name of it but it's long and wicked looking. When you stab a pineapple on it and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and roast it, WOW... And I wanted so bad to have supper with all my campfire addict friends again) 731. Sitting on a bench people-watching 732. A dolled up teenage girl with high waisted shorts and leather sandals... AND her plump dad's uniform jacket over all of it 735. KIDS everywhere 736. And one with a chocolate chip cookie he wanted to give me so bad 738. Bed!!! (The last two weekends I've cleaned fish blood out of ice chests all day at my friend's fish farm and found out last Saturday evening that they broke their record. People are using their Trump checks to take their families fishing apparently... 4,100 lb cleaned that day, and 1,300 taken live.) 760. Perfect pavlova 769. Letting my eyebrows go natural with no one to care lol I had to leave the last one in there lol! So there's a picture of my life. Maybe you say it looks like I'm having a perfect time, but it is hard to feel like your life is just stuck. And the days just move along with no purpose. But I try to make happy moments too... Maybe that's what God has some of the angels do... Full time... Make little happy, special moments for us, if we choose to see them. I think if I was an angel that's the job I would want!