One small note...

I was feeling sorry for myself yesterday. I was feeling inadequate, used, alone, unappreciated, misunderstood, taken advantage of, misread, misguided and 9000 other emotions. I have a few people in my life that bring out all of this confusion for me and I hate it. I hate that I let them get to me. I think - they just don't understand me, I really don't understand them, and I always come out feeling like I'm trying to mix oil with water. It merges for a few moments but it begins to separate as quickly as it came together. I try to keep these type people at arms length but being a person who is either all or nothing, that's very difficult to do with people who are by definition, supposed to be close to me or are tied to me. I had to dump all of that crap somewhere and it came out here.

As awful as I felt yesterday, the good Lord gave me what I needed to hear. Not once, but twice.

We had a few errands to run last night and when we came home, there was a message from my friend Lori. I knew something was wrong. I only overheard her voice while Jeremy was listening to her message and I knew. Our friend Joe, the one who died, his dad has inoperable colon cancer. They found it in an exploratory surgery, they couldn't take it out so they closed up and left it. He'll begin a chemo regimen and see what happens from there. It wasn't the news that she gave me - it was that she knew me well enough to not email such news to me, to not leave me a message, she knew she needed to tell me herself. She just knew. Although the conversation was short, and my feelings weren't ever mentioned, she told me what I needed to hear from a friend.

And # 2.

Oh, late last summer, when we decided to make Jay's nursery into our office, I decided I'd try to get a nice table to put our computer and all it's stuff on rather than spend money on a big desk and hutch. I went to my Freecycle site and posted a "WANTED". A few hours later, a woman responded that her daughter had a trestle table she was no longer using and I could have it. We made arrangements for pickup and I made plans in my little head for this table/desk.

I headed out to pick up this table in my shiny, clean, barely a year old Explorer (this link is exactly my truck!). I'm heading out to the scene of Deliverance all by myself. I follow the directions to this trailer in the middle of nowhere with no address on it, cars and various parts, broken toys, a lamp, and broken laundry baskets strewn all over the yard. I bravely leave the safety of my truck to go knock on the door. As I'm going to the door the smell of old pee, kool-aid, stale cigarette smoke hits me. I knock and two dirty faced kids, with scraggly hair and soggy diapers come to the door followed by a man sleeved in tattoos wearing basketball shorts. I said "I'm looking for 1234 Anystreet?"

"yeah" he grunts.

I managed to squeak, "Um, I'm here for a table..."

"unh. Jane - she's here for the table." And here comes Jane wearing jeans and a sports bra with her 3 kid pierced and tattooed belly jiggling it's greeting.

Jane and the grunter come out on the porch after yelling at the kids to stay put and start taking stereo speakers off of this beyond filthy, spider web/spider baby sack covered table. I'm thinking to myself - Shit! That can't be it! But it is.

They load this table covered in sand and spilled juice, top side down and slide it over the TAN carpet in my explorer. I'm driving home with my windows all wide open trying to alleviate the stench of this table. All the while thinking WTF am I going to do with this now!?!

Jeremy and I unloaded it with wrinkled noses, cleaned up my truck and I set to washing this table with a bucket of really strong pine cleaner. I took the top off, it wasn't any good, and set it to the trash. We put the bottom of the table in the basement while I looked for a new top. And there it sat until just after my garage sale. I finally told Jeremy to put it on the curb and see if someone takes it. It's a game for us - put something on the curb, he says it'll be gone in 10 minutes, I say no, it'll be gone in an hour and we wait to see who's right.

Last night, I was talking to my sister and our doorbell rang. A man gave Jeremy an envelope and left. In the envelope was a homemade card. On the front, two pictures - 1) an older man in an electric scooter watching TV- 2) just the TV on a table, the bottom was that trestle table we'd put on the curb. Also on the card was a ribbon "One person can make a difference..." inside - "and that person is you! Thank you!"

Also inside was this letter:

Good Day to you and your family,

Dad's vision and physical health has diminished greatly and television plays a large part in enhancing his life. In order for this to happen he has to sit 4" in front of the television. The other day while we were visiting, I noticed the leg of his table was crooked. He mentioned he had rammed it with his scooter trying to get closer to the TV. When Richard tried to fix it the leg just came off (just glued). I'm so glad this happened while we were there otherwise Dad could have had a TV in his lap. Last Saturday we were going there w/the soul purpose of building/creating a new table that his chair would fit under and be safe. We passed your house and noticed the topless table stand on the side of the road. We checked it out and put it in the trailer. If nothing else, Dad would have a creative thought for it. Much to our surprise it was EXACTLY what we needed. We had everything else but w/ the strong structure, shape and height of the base it all came together in a couple of hours. As you can see by the pictures, his chair fits under it nicely and the width gives him room to rotate w/o knocking anything over on himself. Thank you for sharing what you did not need. Besides helping w/the creativity of the table, it gave my father a couple of wonderful hours sharing his carpenters skills w/ my husband.

Thank you,

signed

I cried as I read this letter. I read it to my sister and I know she did too. I needed this letter yesterday. I can't explain the peace I felt after reading it. I knew that I had a purpose here - even through all those horrid emotions I had felt. I knew that I was being led. All those months, I was on my way to purpose. Simple but, still a purpose. I wanted to share my peace with you.