Stories

 I sit at my desk at school and kids and parents and staff find their way to me.  I was hired to maintain the spirit wear store.  I've a suspicion God put me there for very different reasons.  I am quite literally the first person you see when you walk in the front door, unless I am somewhere else in the building, as I'm prone to be, sitting in on classes, doing a prayer walk, helping in the cafeteria, picking up projects here and there to help a staff member out.  I'd live there if I could.  Honest and true.  I fell in love with the family there the minute I walked in the door on that day in June when my girl and I went to take a tour and laughed at ourselves for the audacity of even doing that.  How did we think we were gonna swing this?  And yet, it felt good and right and we somehow sensed we'd just stepped onto a set of tracks we hadn't seen coming and wouldn't have even considered we'd been able to afford to get on the train.

Each day someone sits down beside me in a chair I purposely put by my desk and before I can say "tell me a story", they do.  And I love it so much.  Because I love them.  I love people.  They are the oxygen to my lungs already inflated with His spirit.  I learn from them.  I enter into their world, eager to look around.  I listen for those "me too" moments.  Today a woman told me about her deep loss, one that still brings pain all these years later, and how her wild and nonsense sort of faith has buoyed her when she expected to sink.  It stung my eyes and pricked my heart.  I know someone else like this and it made me remember what I don't really know.

The boy came in to reach into my candy bowl today, while my new friend was sharing her story.   It's been four weeks now, a long time to not speak or hug or touch or look one another in the eye.  I've prayed for a miracle.  When I saw his face in the crowd of kids that he pushed through?  I knew He'd heard.  I knew He was working.  I'd kept his favorite gum in a bag in my desk.  Ready to have my prayer answered.  I held it over his hands, fishing around in the candy and let it fall like water.  I caught his smile and tucked it in my heart.  His eyes flashed brief up at me.  And then back down again, unsure. He came over to me.  "Smarties?" he asked.  I opened my drawer and put some in his cupped hand.  Smarties.  The first word he's spoken to me in so many days.  I'll take that happy.

My new teacher friend and I sat over our chicken sandwiches today, taking turns crying and laughing.  So real, she is.  I feel myself a tree being planted by refreshing waters.  I think my roots can sink here and breathe strong.  I sense something being born.  We spent a lovely evening at her house just being.  How good it is to "be" without pretense, preparation.  It felt like home for my soul.

I walked through the halls today smiling at kids, fielding hugs from those who ran up to me, high fiving others.  I sat with a young person, listening to their struggle and praying to be a safe place that calls them to a higher place.  God?  You have ordered my steps.  You have crafted new desires for me and are delighting in giving them to me.  You have given me stories to hear and stories to write.  You have written the greatest story of them all straight onto my heart.