The glorious sunshine of the day nearly blinded me, and the mighty wind nearly took my breath away as I was swept in to work. My afternoon behind the coffee bar was slightly darker than the day, a mad stormy rush to create complicated caffeinated concoctions for waiting customers. Brewing, pouring, (spilling) serving, cleaning up in time to do it all over again. I barely had time to catch a breath and all I wanted was a piece of chocolate.
Finally there was a pause in the madness and as I took a moment to grind coffee for the next pot, I glanced up toward heaven somewhat exasperatedly praying, "Dear God". . .and there I saw several soft, perfectly periwinkle clouds drift lazily by the big windows, a delightful contrast against the soft blue sky: grace. Grace filled me and my soul sighed with relief at the reminder that I am so very, very small, that there is something more, something--Someone bigger than me, bigger than coffee and my Lent-induced cravings for sweets and chocolates and everything else that would violate my strict "diet for Jesus." There is beauty beyond, in and around us, blowing in on a gust of wind, drifting by in a periwinkle cloud, beaming in a big smile from a stranger.
It's the little things. There are graces to be had in every moment of every day. Even when days blend together and there seems to be no end to the constant madness, there is grace to be had. Some days I know I have no desire to find it. I dream all day of a big fat rock I could crawl under and hide from the world. And then I see a mother turn the hose from the flower garden and aim it at her daughter who squeals in surprised delight at the relief from the uncharacteristically hot March sun. And I see an elderly couple walking hand in hand down the street, each holding the other up. Beauty.
And I may not be the happiest person in the world when I roll into work before the sun has even begun to rub its eyes, but I see a sliver of the moon aglow in the morning mist, the rest covered in shadow, and I know that all around me is Something, Someone bigger. There is a force greater than any in the world, a force that created the world and bound it together so that when the earth shakes and the oceans roar and countries are devastated and lives are lost, this force reveals itself in efforts of relief and comfort: Love.
There is no love without suffering, but the Good News is that, as Sheldon Vanauken wrote in A Severe Mercy, "Love is the final reality." So when it seems that the world is crashing down around us, or that life is sucking us down into a black hole of monotony, we needn't lose our Hope that Love will have the final Word, that everything might not be the way it once was, but it will be a New Creation: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . .And he who sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" Revelations 21:1, 5
