My Turn

Sunday afternoon, there came a soft knock at our door. I looked out the peephole and saw a stranger waiting patiently on our owl doormat with an orange paper plate of cookies. I opened the door, smiling expectantly. We didn't know each other. But she knew of me. She had my name and address on a piece of paper.

I apologized for taking so long to get to the door. We talked for a minute. She asked me if we had any family in Nevada. I shook my head. Neither did she. We commiserated. My smile was genuine. My cheerfulness real.

She didn't know that five minutes ago--two minutes ago, actually--I had been curled up on the bed, sobbing into my husband's shoulder. That it had taken me a minute or two to compose myself before opening the door.

She didn't know of the depression that I have felt with the onset of fall--the fall that hasn't come yet. The days shorten, yet there remains the monotonous luster and still-hot weather of summer. All I long for is crisp air, the smell of apples and rotting leaves. More than that, familiar voices and faces. How could she know any of this? She didn't.

Yet, there she was on my porch with an offering of cookies and friendship and the promise of another visit. It was a small thing, but after I closed the the door, I was overwhelmed--I was speechless--which is appropriate when one has been attended to so manifestly and palpably by their God.

And, let me be clear that these sorts of things never rarely happen to me. I guess it was my turn.