And on the Fifth Day of Advent....

God sent me a wonderful gift. I had a call this afternoon that left me full of hope. The official person related to my falling shoes thing called to tell me my file was leaving his desk. He also wanted to tell me that while he is not the final say on this, that in his opinion, I have reason to be optimistic that in the end all really will be well with this and life as I know it will go on in some form that I recognize as mine. This is the most hopeful I have felt about this whole business since the day this same man asked me a whole lot of very hard questions. He says it is not likely I will know anything more until the new year, but he wanted to "offer some reassurance." When this is all said and done, if it really does come out ok, I wonder if it would be totally inappropriate to send him flowers? He has been so....decent through a very hard thing.

This validates and affirms again for me something I know so much to be true...that how we are with people is so very important. It's not what we say, or even perhaps do as much as it is how we are present. We talked about this at GBD last night...this ministry of showing up. How sometimes it's all we can do. That sometimes it's all we should do. To do more, even to say something, would be to do too much. Our job is to show up and be present and God will take it from there if we have sense enough to stay out of the way. Some days I need this written on my hand!

So on the fifth day of Christmas the person in the song gets five golden rings. I get hope. And right now I am thinking I got a MUCH better deal. God is good and grace abounds.