“Aren’t you MORE valuable than them?”

It was one of those days today. Bliss: perfect happiness, great joy. I couldn’t put my finger on the specific reason why it was so brilliant. It was like a great scene in  a movie, all the shots lined one another and created a perfect-ness! From one scene to the next, I left with MORE than I came with and I believe they did as well.

I have to tell you one particular scene that had a build up of the past several days…

It was Thursday. I was running the roads frantically as usual. It seems I am always running, my mind the most but namely today physically on the roads. I pulled out my gloss. It’s a perfect gloss I got around December when I arrived back in the States last year. See it’s a splurge of a gloss. It’s higher end Chanel brand and I LOVE IT. It makes me feel pretty as a shiny car sortof gloss. I am a pretty particular person and so the same with my gloss. It’s also a ridiculous $27. I used to not think much of money. That was when I wasn’t paying for everything.

It seemed to me that this paper was indispensable. Valuable but nonetheless indispensable. To my surprise. Fast forward to the present. Me, my 20 hr a week job as of October and all my bills.

It seems strange to ask God for something like lip gloss but I swear that day in the car He challenged me to ask Him for a lip gloss. “There is no way that some random person is going to give me Chanel lip gloss Dad!” You can call me the GRANDEST REASONER around, to a fault I am sure of that. But in my head my case was simple. My budget is tighter than a size 10 trying a size 2… there’s no room anywhere! And so when I have been applying the same empty tube of lip gloss to my lips for the past week I knew this was ludicrous to even imagine Him telling me to “believe He could provide, if only I would ask”.

It was Friday now and He said, “why not”. I am sure my answer was somewhere along the lines of “crazy talk Natalie”. It was selfish for one and for two it was LIP GLOSS! But He persisted, “It’s Me Natalie and I am asking you if I can?” I couldn’t resist. I “entertained” the idea. I said, “okay, if this is you then make a way cause you know I ain’t got one”. Done. Said it. Still thinking I am ridiculous though.

It was now Saturday and I was applying the same empty tube I was the day before. Again I am thinking of the impossibility of me being able to buy a new tube. The sadness of being broke. The relief that next month is on it’s way and I was going to dip into grocery money for my new gloss if of course He didn’t (trailing off sound)…… I then wondered if my sister Mel would for some strange reason call me and say, “Natalie, I have all these lip glosses, why don’t I send you one!” See rationally reasoning again. But that’s as far as I could imagine. All the while I still had that deep feeling that I was not believing He could get manage on His own. Doesn’t He have enough on His plate? I felt trivial and then again selfish. I dismissed my wants and continued driving to my friends house.

It was somewhere out in Denham, LA. Not the sort of place I call home. It’s unfamiliar and as of now I have decided anything outside the city limits was officially “the country” to me. I got out my car and ended the conversation on the phone I was having. My friend since I was 3 was having a celebration party because she had just found out she was pregnant. She’s one of the 5 girls in my life called Kristen. I love that because Kristen (an, in) means, “like Christ”… so I am surrounded by some pretty good people! She trumphs the others in a way because our lives started with one anothers. I do not have many 24 year old relationships so it’s something that isn’t easily explained.

Her family is like my own of course and upon arriving there was long and loud hugs and oooohhhhs and aaaahhhhhs and all those necessary things that women do when they see other women. I hugged her like it was  a lifetime since I saw her. I love a good hug. There’s more in a hug than arms. There’s conversation in a hug for sure and ours had a lot to say.

She brought me into the babies room and showed me all that she was planning for the next season of mothering. I was excited as a kid with a new toy. It’s something terribly wonderful about sharing these moments with your friends. As she was updating me on the colors and turtles and blankets and such her mom walked in and started listening. We were all physically close to one another like a team huddle. Jenny, the mom, pulled out her shiny tube of something and I squeaked, “is that Chanel?”…. Her mom is the glamorous type. To the nines all the time. Beautiful and proper. She fits into the top end glamor magazine sort of woman. She said, “no, this is just one of those run in the grocery stores and get one”… I said, “oh, okay, I have been into the Chanel ones… I love them… they are like the best”… and on and on about the glory of the Chanel gloss.

Kris looks at me and says, “come see Natalie” and off we go into her bathroom I followed her. It’s terribly clean, not like I remember and smelling fresh. She digs into a bag that is on the floor and pulls out a pink tube of goodness! “I have this one that I never use, you can have it!”…. I KID YOU NOT!

Chanel pink LIP GLOSS.

I know. I like to have fell on the floor, rolled around and let it rip! It was so Him. I couldn’t explain the elation that I was feeling. I gasped and laughed and threw my head back and my arm up and made the biggest mess as I told her the story of the past several days of conversation Him and I have had. It’s as if He was standing right next to me elbowing me in the arm saying something like, “see… that’s how I do it, and you didn’t think I could do it… ha… your best friend’s… never been used lip gloss… I GOT THIS”…

Trivial, coincidental, I THINK NOT.

So it just falls into the same category of the BIRDS… the freaking BIRDS….

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? _Matthew 6:25

He is passionately concerned with the details of our lives. PASSIONATELY!

You can see the bottom one’s sad emptiness, wand all white and without gloss But then you can see the beautiful-ness of the top PINK gloss!

Selah