I have a saying.
“People…”
I utter this one word whenever someone does something exasperating or unbelievable. I usually shake my head, shrug and smirk as the words pass through my mouth. The unspoken ellipsis following the word hangs in the air. It is a fill-in-the-blank for anyone listening. They can insert their commentary of choice that reflects how disappointing/goofy/dumb/insane people can be sometime. It’s convenient and a lot less rude than overt name calling.
But today the elipsis is different. It’s positive. People have surprised me over the past couple of weeks, but in really good ways.
Our family has had a handful of minor disruptions over the past two weeks. I won’t run down the list here. Crying and moaning in public is undignified. Plus, I have some friends who are dealing with more difficult life happenings and it would be unbecoming to disrespect them by making it seem like my world is about to end.
But as tiring as the past two weeks have been with the turns and speed bumps, it’s cool to look back and see how people have been awesome during that time. People have been exceedingly generous to us. They have been helpful. They have done things that have given us space and time to deal with life. In an era where people disappoint a lot, I’m glad to have had experiences where people showed us a lot of grace and generosity.
Now that things are (hopefully) smoothing out we have a lot of thank you’s to cover. We also have a responsibility to do for others what others have done for us. Because they have allowed us to weather the storm. And now I’m sitting back, taking a deep breath, shaking my head, and saying, “people…”.
But that crazy elipsis means something completely different today.
Renew and Restore
