The Intercession of Strangers

Sometimes I feel far from God. Not that he’s walked away, but that I, in the business and non-stop pace of my life, have walked away from Him.

Its been especially bad lately. There is so much darkness in the world. I feel like now, more than ever, with the Internet, spewing out hatred and darkness, rape and murder, that we are more aware of evil than we were ten, twenty years ago. Our minds are filled with questions: “How could someone do such a thing? What kind of person does it take to… [fill in the blank]. What if I was the victim? What makes that person do such a thing? What makes him/her different from me?”

Some days, I wake up with a cloud of darkness hanging around my head. I go about my daily life, and the hatred and sins of the world haunt me, make me afraid of people, afraid of myself.

And even closer to me and my own life, so many friends of mine, who were strong believers, now have their own doubts, or have turned away from God entirely. It’s almost become a fad to hate God, and I feel so alone.

God, where are You?

Yet, I still don’t take the time on most days to seek Him out, to just take ten minutes and focus on Him. Instead, I open yet another news story, or scroll through more mindless social media, which once brought us all together, but is now, forcing us to see the evil in our fellow man more clearly than before.

Mistrust runs my day, and fear enters my nights.

I woke up this morning with this overhanging dread again, and a migraine to accompany it. “God, why don’t you speak to me?” I said in a prayer. He has spoken to me so many other times when my heart wept the most. I have audibly heard His voice, and I know the sound of it like a baby knows the sound of his mother’s voice, even when he first emerges from the womb.

I miss you, God.

When I finally chased away my blues and the headache and came to work, one of my coworkers came to me and told me an interesting story. She had met a woman last night, later in the evening, after everyone in our department had left for the day. The woman’s name was Cindy, and she asked my coworker what department she was in, because she was a newer employee, and often on her breaks during her late shift, she would wander through our department, praying.

Then she said that she felt drawn to one office in particular. She led my coworker back to a door and placed her hands on it, saying that she most often feels God leading her to pray for the person who works behind the door.

It was my door. She’s been praying for me.

I know that God wanted me to know that. He wants me to know that even strangers who I’ve never met before pray over me—that my problems aren’t so big, or my worries so outlandish that God no longer cares.

I was reminded of verses in the Bible that talk about how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, when we cannot or will not pray for ourselves. If the Holy Spirit prays for us, then maybe he calls others up to pray with Him. Thank you, God, for never forsaking me.

Thrift Store Score

There are few things more thrilling in life than finding a good deal. Over the years I’ve been a thrift and consignment store shopper, on the look-out for deals. I’ve found a few good things. A few years ago, I found a cute bracelet that I really liked. It was only $5,  so I bought it. Weeks later, the markings inside the bracelet revealed that it was sterling silver. It also included a jeweler’s marking. I looked that up, and found out that normally those bracelets go for about $120. I got it for $5. Win.

Since then, I’ve learned to keep a good eye out for good jewelry. I’ve been making jewelry and ravenously buying jewelry all of my life. My dad used to take me with him when he shopped for my mom, because I could spot a flawed gemstone immediately. One Christmas I actually stopped him from buying an emerald set, because one of the emeralds was cracked. The jeweler was less than thrilled.

Over the weekend, I was visiting family and friends in Maryland. As I usually do, I went to a consignment shop. While there, I took a glance at the jewelry counter and tried on various cheap, pearl rings with chipped paint. They were costume jewelry, so I decided against them. But then I saw a beautiful ring in the corner of the cabinet. It looked to be silver, with a diamond and two sapphires embedded in it. It was only $26, and fit me perfectly, so I decided to purchase it.

This morning I discovered some strange markings inside of it, and a small sapphire, which I hadn’t noticed before, embedded in the band.

How odd. Who puts a gem INSIDE the ring?

My ring, ya'll

Anyway, it took me awhile, but I tracked it down, and found out that it was a Zales engagement ring (clearly, that relationship didn’t go very well), and sells for $119.

SCORE. Let me remind you that I got it for $26.

I am by no means an expert at this, but I have a few hints on how to find a treasure among plastic fakes:

Look inside the jewelry for markings. Most commonly, you will find the 925 marking stamped inside the piece. That means it’s sterling silver, and, you can’t go wrong with silver. It’s a good metal that’ll last. It just tarnishes, so you have to clean it from time to time.

Also, look for markings like 10k, or 14k, basically any marking that includes a “k.” That tells you that the metal is gold, and the number tells you how many karats. Look for any other markings, and do a quick Google search if you can. Often if a piece is good, it’ll have a jeweler’s stamp inside of it.

Look for small, dull stones. Seriously, real jewelry often isn’t terribly flashy. The flashy, sparkly stuff is usually fake, used for bigger, cocktail-type pieces. Real gemstones (unless you’re talking about big, LARGE diamonds) are often darker in color (like real sapphires and rubies), and small, because good gems are expensive—so the smaller the piece, the more affordable it is. When I find a ring or earrings with small, dark stones, I know it’s usually a real sapphire (or ruby, or whatever).

Dead giveaways that something is fake:

•         Any sort of chipping or peeling of the metal.
•          Cloudy stones. Old fake diamonds, especially, used to cloud if you introduced them to water too often. Real stones might often be dark, but they’re seldom cloudy.
•         The metal reveals a copper-colored underside. That means whatever it was coated with (even if it was coated with silver) has rubbed off. That orange stuff on the underside is often what turns people’s fingers green.

Left Me, Left us, Left Him

No one is really going to understand,

And I don’t expect them to.

No one is really going to care,

And why should they?

But, I know why you left me.

Left us.

Left Him.

Didn’t you know that I would love you through this?

That I would be your friend no matter what you did?

No matter the choices you made?

But maybe you were smart. (You always have been.)

Maybe you knew that I loved you too much.

Maybe you were afraid that I would follow you.

And perhaps, in your heart of hearts, you still know the truth.

Maybe you were trying to protect me. (Just like you always did).

I don’t know. I guess I never will.

But I still love you.

I’m still here.

We’re still here.

He’s still here.

To an Imaginary Friend

Why do you haunt my dreams still?

I wake up and I know you've been with me all night. 

I thought imaginary friends were supposed to vanish at adulthood. 

Yet, here I am at 26, and you're still with me. 

Maybe I'm trying to resurrect the spirit of my childhood. 

If I am, I've been successful—

For every time I think of you, speak of you, and especially write of you,

There you are—in a word, a message, a picture. 

You don't fade with time as I once thought you would,

And I'm beginning to think that you are mine for life. 

Or perhaps, 

Just perhaps,

I am I yours?

The House That Never Had a Christmas

The House That Never Had a Christmas

By Abigail Shaffer

There was a little house

That was happy all spring long.

When the birds chirped cheerfully,

He was glad to sing along.

He always smiled in the summer,

When his yard was filled with play.

His little family laughed and sang

Through every long, hot day.

And then it was the autumn,

When all the leaves would fall,

That he would think to himself,

“I love this season most of all.”

But the next season was the hardest.

When winter came, he was sad,

Because he knew Christmas was coming

And he’d be left alone by the kids, Mom, and Dad.

You see, he had never seen a Christmas.

Not a single one.

Every time his family returned,

Christmas would be done.

He’d never seen a Christmas tree,

He’d never seen a sparkly light.

He’d never watched a Christmas movie,

Or heard “Oh Holy Night.”

He wanted to be a part of the joy

That was this special time.

He wasn’t decorated like other houses,

And he felt so left behind.

“But maybe this once,” He thought, with hope,

“There will be decorations there.

Perhaps it’ll be the first time

They light a yule log here.”

He hoped and he hoped

And he wished on a star

And when he went to sleep

He prayed very hard.

The very next morning

He awoke on Christmas Eve,

Feeling rather nervous

Because it was the day his family would leave.

But what did he see that morning

That filled his heart with joy?

His family decorating a Christmas tree,

Every man, woman, girl, and boy!

Then it was the big day!

The house was filled with cheer.

The kids opened their stockings

And to the house it was very clear.

Christmas is a time of family.

And to him it had been the reason

That he had wanted to share it with the family he loved,

For Christmas is the very best season.

For the Friend I Lost, and the Friend Who Carries On Without Her

You can see it in her face.

It isn’t lines or age.

It’s time and pain.

There has been so much hurt.

So much loss.

It wasn’t even my mom, who is gone,

But sometimes I feel like it was.

I’m afraid to express my own pain,

Because it isn’t fair to her,

Since she lost more than the rest of us.

But she wears her pain

Like water wears the glow of the morning sun.

It’s made her better,

Stronger,

More beautiful.

She makes me want to be like her—

And that’s the same way her mother always made me feel.

Hoverboards and Hope

Marty McFly traveled to a bright future full of hoverboards, pretty colors, and cool inventions. Even though his future wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for, it was still bright and hopeful as a whole. It’s indicative of older futuristic movies—the likes of which you really don’t see anymore.

But now the future is here and we all have computers in our pockets and cool inventions that make our lives easier, even though I don’t ride to work every day on a hoverboard (get on that, NASA). However, our media doesn’t reflect that. More recently, our movies and TV shows are generally about apocalypse, end times, zombie attacks, and mass death. It’s dark. It’s depressing. It’s hard to find the hope. People are cast off like dandelion seeds, and human life is disposable.

Last Christmas, one of my best friends made me a painting with a quote from the BBC show, Doctor Who, which said, “Nine hundred years of time and space and I never met anyone who was unimportant.”

It spoke to me. Everyone is important.

And recently I was watching an episode of the same show, when the Doctor was in a usual, desperate situation where he finds himself on a strange planet, with a bus full of people he was trying to save. He began to ask them where they were headed when they got on the bus. Some were headed to dinner, others to see friends and family, some just wanted to go home and watch TV. The Doctor told them, “That planet out there … that planet is nothing—you hear me? Nothing compared to all those things waiting for you: food, and home, and people. Hold on to that.”

This morning I was talking on the phone with my boyfriend as I got ready for work. He had been reading the Bible in the morning and he said he had been thinking about “the little people” in the Bible who are just part of a group and never get mentioned—the ones who marched around Jericho, or who wandered in the desert. He was talking about how we as people are always told that we can do great things, that we should strive to reach our potential…but what about these nameless people who were essentially the cogs of something bigger…but never had their names mentioned or made a big difference on their own.

I’ve been thinking about that this morning, and it makes me think of those Doctor Who quotes. There isn’t anyone who isn’t important. Every person makes a difference, even if it’s small. Even if it just means your life is composed of going to your boring day job and coming home to your loved ones at night.

We are all part of a bigger picture, and together we make a difference—even when we don’t think that we are. When we are living our lives, doing what God intended for us to do, we’re doing the greatest thing we can, even if we aren’t curing cancer or saving someone’s life.

Life happens in the little things. Life is made in the tiny decisions. Our lives matter, even in the great scheme of things and the vast cosmos that we know so little about. We matter. I matter.

YOU matter.