I had gone to CVS to pick up a prescription and figured since I was there I would pick up some shampoo and conditioner. Both my husband and my boy like to use my shampoo and conditioner far more than the 3- all- in- 1 wash I bought for them. (What’s up with that anyway?! I digress…) So, me, being the frugal girl that I am, looked about and I found these 2 big bottles of Assie for 50% off. SCORE for the pocketbook!

So what’s the big deal? Well, I am going to tell you. Sometimes, beautiful gifts come from the strangest of places. I find it peculiar that we can see and hear a million things but a smell will draw memories from long forgotten places into the present.

These memories often come with nuggets of wisdom and understand if we allow them to swirl in the mind for more than a moment. The devastation of being distracted has stolen from us more than we know. The art of pondering is a tool gift from heaven. It’s the ability to seek and search for what is not readily seen. This tool helps us to mine the depths of our souls and of our experience for beautiful treasure hidden. Treasure once lost in time past but has now been found.

If you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,

then you will understand….

Proverbs 2:4-5b

I added a pump of shampoo to my hand and started to wash my hair. My mind was whisked away to 23 years ago. I was 1996 and I was newly graduated out of high school. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Up to that point, I had felt like I was some kind of orphan child without a father with no place to call home. Jesus was chasing my heart and I wasn’t sure what to do with that. I was lost and adrift but my heart was searching. At that time one thing was constant. Old Canyon Rd. That is where my Aunt Janice, Grammy, and Poppy lived. Most of the time I was on the run, trying to figure out how to live life, and was making a mess of it. I didn’t live with my mom. I didn’t really live anywhere for that year. Yet, over and over I would end up on Old Canyon Rd.

My mind jumped back to the present thinking of how so many kids and young people are adrift in our current 2019 society and I wonder how rare it is that they have a place to land like I did. Then, with another whiff of shampoo I remembered how I would show up at all hours of the day to find some rest and comfort. My Uncle had built my cousin’s a club house with couches, a table, and a bunk bed that I often slept in when I showed up after dark. These people were my family. They never turned me away. They fed me more times than I can count. They hugged me, talked to me, and were genuinely interested in me. It was so welcoming there that I just would go upstairs and hop in the shower and I washed my hair with Aussie shampoo.

In hindsight this to me is a beautiful gift to remember. It may take people 23 years to remember the great kindness you show them. It did for me. In pondering, I know they never were kind to me for the thanks they would receive. As a matter of fact, all of them are passed on into the halls of eternity now. They were kind people because that was who they were.

May I also live forward into that legacy.

All is grace,

Starla