I met my friend Ellen for breakfast this morning. After hitting every stoplight between my house and Another Broken Egg, I was officially forty-five minutes late for our breakfast and that cut our catch-up time to roughly thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is never enough time for two long-lost friends to come into one another's inner circle again.
As I was getting out of the car, I realized that I had pulled the wrong purple top out of the closet this morning. I was currently wearing the one with the stain. Ugh.
I fluffed my hair using the car window as my mirror and all I could notice was that the current length of my hair, when I let it dry naturally, does not work well with my face. I then realized I was wearing gold earrings with a silver watch and the manicure I had painstakingly slapped on during the "How I Met Your Mother" finale last night had already begun to peel.
I then caught a glimpse of myself in the door as I was walking in to breakfast and realized that I had forgotten to smooth my foundation on my right cheek and I clearly had not used enough concealer under my eyes that morning. Not to mention that I had grabbed the wrong tube of lipstick this morning and this pink was one big line of nope.
Ugh.
Seriously.
Ellen and I could hardly form sentences at breakfast -- each of us exhausted from our recent work schedules. My phone beeped between bites of breakfast potatoes -- my favorite kind of potatoes! -- and I realized that I was supposed to have a few slides done for my grad school group project meeting that night.
Alas, none of the interviewees I had contacted had gotten back with me. I was going to be walking in to our meeting with empty hands for the second week in a row.
Ugh.
Seriously.
After finishing off that plate of breakfast potatoes, I realized just how much of A Fat Day I felt coming on. This shirt just didn't fit right, and I was, in a word, uncomfortable.
I realized that I had not done as good of a job this morning of planning my day, now finding myself with over an hour to spare between breakfast with Ellen and meeting Shelly for a full day of rocking BabyJ. There was a Target with a Starbucks across the way, and, as we all know, there is always time for Target.
I hopped out of my car and was greeted by the guy picking up the trash in the Target parking lot.
"Good morning, love! It is a beautiful day!"
I grunted a greeting to him, flashing half a smile.
"A beautiful day, indeed," he continued. "The sun does lovely things to your hair, ya know?! Such a lovely lass." His sweet accent getting thicker by the compliment. "Well, yes, I daresay, there is no flaw in this day. There is no flaw in you, love. Just as Solomon said. There is no flaw in you."
As I was walking away from the trash man with accent, Romans 12 entered my mind. "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought...in Christ, we form one body, and each member belongs to all of the others."
This member's job was to encourage his sister in Christ. His job was to get the wheels rolling and pull me out of A Fat Day and into Truth.
I met my friend James for coffee late last night (that is the true meaning of Spring Break: the ability to drink a cappuccino at 9:15 p.m. and not be afraid). On the way out, we ran into a friend of his and she and I got to talking. She is heading out to India for two months and she was hitting obstacles getting there. She and I swapped stories of the months leading to my trip to Lebanon. I could see in her eyes the need for a connection with someone who understood what it was like to lose relationships over a decision that truly isn't your own. We spoke of common fears and common conversations with Jesus, each of us nodding our head and laughing as we recalled our personal version of the same story.
Last night was not about getting coffee with James, as lovely as the time was. Last night was about a small divine intervention appointment with a new friend who needed a bit of encouragement. It was about a girl who although the path was laid before her, she felt lost. She felt lost in her own life, but still so sure about where the Lord was leading her.
That is the Body of Christ. Many member working for the greater good.
While my chipped nail polish, stained shirt, traffic jams, and uneven make-up all worked together for a frustrated girl, Jesus was working with a trash man to validate that my awkward hair length isn't even a drop in the bucket.
"There is no flaw in you, my darling." His delight is my giggle as I swipe on another brush of glitter nail polish. His delight is in two of His daughters coming together to encourage one another over seasoned breakfast potatoes. His delight is that He gets to provide strength for the days that I'm exhausted. His delight is that while I'm sitting in traffic, I talk to Him...even if it is grumbling. His delight is when I look in the mirror and say, "Ugh. My hair. Seriously?" and He gets respond, "Yes, love, I'll take it all."
He'll take it all. And then He'll give back more.
