My sweet, crazy friend in Germany sent me a Skype video message and asked if I’m too happy to blog these days. “I’ve checked your blog the last weeks, and I don’t see you writing anything and I wonder, ‘Ok, is she very sad, or is she just busy, or is she too happy to blog anything?’ So I hope you’re too happy!”

I’m all of the above, and mostly too focused on using words in other ways than on a blog. And more than anything, this is a season of rest and silence and transition, where the words that are part of my life are too intense and/or too foggy to put out there for public consumption.

Still, there are some words that should maybe see the virtual light of day.

It was in a class called Developing As a Servant. One assignment was to give a 2-minute presentation to the class about a servant who impacted us. I knew the stereotypical Sunday school answer: (given in a high little voice, nodding) “my mommy and daddy” but that was the prevailing impression that stayed in my mind as I tried to decide what I would tell the class.

I said my parents have given their lives to serving people and being in ministry in some way, instead of pursuing the American dream, and I’m so grateful for that example. Then I gave this vignette:

I was with my dad in town some years back. It was a couple days before Christmas and the atmosphere was pretty crazy. We were picking up an order that we needed for our business, and the lady at the service desk couldn’t find it, and wasn’t being very helpful. The details are hazy to me now, but I remember that we weren’t getting the service we should have and we needed the order NOW, not in a few days.

I worked in a store for many years and I know how to serve customers, so I’m very sensitive to the customer service I receive. I notice and am very appreciative of good service, but when it’s not so good, I quickly decide not to patronize the place again. At that counter with my dad, I was at the side, watching the scene play out. My instinct would have been to be snappy and demanding. (That was back then, I’d never do that now. sigh. Actually, now I’d probably go into a whiny mode and act pitiful.)

But my dad stayed calm and polite and even cheerful. He calmly asked when the order will be in and didn’t demand what was his right as a customer. I got the distinct impression that he was serving her and being helpful to her when she was the one who should’ve been doing that to him.

That’s my model, which seems like a mouthful to say, as selfish and myopic as I am. But it’s my aspiration–to give grace and understanding to my world. Indiscriminately. Generously. Cheerfully. Quietly.

I often cry when I think about how incredibly wonderful it would be to walk beside Jesus, laugh with Him, and listen to how He talked with people. In a tiny way, I can do that  now when I’m in step with the Spirit who is tenting in me and guides me. To serve my thirsty world, care, anticipate need, give gentleness–this is living like my dad and Jesus.

One customer service agent, one fellow traveler, one sister, one neighbor at a time. Jesus and I, we can change the world.

Join me?

(The next few posts are installments of an article that was first printed in the lovely Daughters of Promise Sept.-Oct. 2015 issue. You might mosey over to their site to subscribe for yourself or a friend?

“Beauty” is a theme saturated with strong emotions, our own stories, and our dreams.The words I offer here are like anything else that appears here: ruminations and ideas to take or leave as you wish.)

Where’s that eye cream my friend gave?

This was my thought, the minute I saw my eyes have crow’s feet when I smile.

When I noticed wisps of silver at my ears and temples: I’m too young for grey hair. Where can I buy some brown-tinted shampoo?

I didn’t think I had a complex about my age. I don’t notice wrinkles and grey hair on other women. But on my face? Suddenly I was aware of a complex I couldn’t even name.

It had something to do with my idea of my face, and wrinkles and grey hair didn’t fit into that. Or then it was connected to my self-image, and my body’s new developments messed with who I thought I was: not beautiful, but not aging.

What is beauty, anyhow? I started mulling.

The miles of aisles selling crèmes, toners, colors and oils seem to imply beauty is in a bottle or package. Particularly one with shiny wrapping and curlicue graphics. The bottle’s contents will surely imbed the same attractiveness on your face or hair or legs.

Age-defying. Blemish-perfecting. Clearer skin after 7 days. Glossy hair—in the color of your choice. Break- through ingredient. Regenerating technology. Nature’s micro-oil fusion. Shimmering. Instantly luminous and youthful.

Beauty is something you can hold in your hand, exchange for some money, and keep within arm’s reach every day. Or on your dresser, catch-all basket, or bag. (Beauty is also the style and color of one’s shoes. Or scarf. Or belt.)

I’ve been thinking about seasons and moments, and how life is directional like a timeline, and I hear ladies not saying how old they are, and others feel melancholy about some percentage of their life being over.

Maybe I’m naive but I’ve never understood women’s reticence about saying their age. I get the idea of life having seasons. That seems obvious.

Maybe I’m missing something but what I don’t get is reflecting on life’s passing and being sad about it. When someone moans,”Now my life is 30% over,” I want to say “How do you know? The young can die as soon as the old. You only have this moment. Please don’t sigh about whatever fraction of your life is behind and ahead of you.”

One way this plays out is in celebrating small and big moments. The brilliant leaf on the sidewalk. The sky’s reflection in a water puddle. Someone’s choice of words. An anniversary of a significant event should be acknowledged, pondered, reflected on. Every birthday deserves cheers and salutations and blessings given, but I think especially decade birthdays should have extra blessings pronounced, bigger candles and cake. Or stashes of chocolate, as the case may be.

It’s not something to moan about, being over the hill or so much nearer to the end of life. It should be something to make much of, that we’ve been given THIS HUGE GIFT of life, crammed full of 10,000 moments every day, filled with color and music and fresh air and wispy hair. What’s to be melancholy about that?

Oh yes, the greying hair. I know. I see them every morning. It’s a sign.

It’s a sign that you have seen diamonds on trees and touched baby’s skin and tasted tears.

And you’re bigger and broader and wiser than a year ago. And a day ago. And a moment ago.

What’s to be sad about that? You could be jaded. You could be comatose. Those would be something to be sad about.

But you’re ALIVE!

This is a gift not everyone has. Take it with both hands open, revel in it, breathe it in deep.

If life is a timeline, it follows that we are at a point because of other points that precede this. Maybe those who treasure life most are those who have walked through places where they learn how fragile the line is, how easily it breaks.

Maybe we can’t know what we have until it’s been threatened or removed. I have been shattered emotionally and physically and maybe that’s why moments are so important to me. After my traumatic surgery, the anesthesiologist shone her flashlight in my eye to check my brain activity because my body was convulsing. I stopped breathing twice, and I resented the nurse shaking my shoulder, telling me to breathe, because I was finally resting and it was dark and calm there.

Life is beautiful, but it’s also terrible and frightening and there are moments that want to crush you. But life is living and growing and changing and not staying the same and I’m not enough of a poet to put it into words, but I want to say it’s a gift. You don’t earn gifts or refuse them. Life wants to be taken and made much of.

So celebrate!