"You look so excited!"....

Today was picture day at school and well......since I don't fancy myself picture worthy, it's just so much awkward posing.  Head tilted just so, hands at sides.  Surely we don't really have to go through with this?  But, as I stepped up to the plate, the first of the day, the lovely young girl taking my picture smiled at me.  "You look so excited!", she says.  "Are you?"  I giggled a "yes" but added, "I've no reason really.  I'm just so happy to be here."

"What do you do here?", she asked.  "Love kids.  But I get paid to run the student spirit store."  Hours later, after all the images had been captured in her camera, she came through the doors of the store and we spent some time getting to know one another and sharing our stories.  She used to go to this school several years back, she told me, but not before some struggles led her there.  She's better now, she tells me, but she's still carving out her path to figure out God.  I realized how much my soul felt fed full by connections like this one.

She wanted a t shirt from the school for old times but didn't have enough money so I pitched in to finish off the amount needed. "Take it and remember our talk," I told her.  "Come back and see me."

I locked the doors of the store and headed off to lunch and sat with a group of sparkly little girls and stifled a laugh at the boy who "accidentally" squirted mustard down his shirt.

This is why I look so excited, I thought.