We All Have Something

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I haven't written in a while... I haven't known what to say.  Should I tell you how desperately, how painfully I long for Bentley?  No, you don't want to hear that.  You will probably think I'm silly for missing a dog so much.  Should I tell you that I'm having a hard time being back in the U.S., connecting with my family?  No, too lifetime movie network.  Should I tell you of our two-year struggle to have a baby? Of how at times I look at my life and it just hasn't turned out the way I thought it would?

The truth is that I have been hurting these past few months - just kind of a dull ache that every now and then wells up into uncontrollable tears.  Tears which I am careful to shed when I am alone and unseen.  But I'm not alone.  Tonight God gently reminded me of this fact at the beauty salon.

I went to get my hair done because Thursday Joshua and I will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary and I want to be extra pretty.  It's a girl thing - we must have our hair just so for special occasions.  The lovely woman who did my hair was very chatty.  She was not my usual girl, but that's OK, I just rolled with it.  She told me, to my great surprise, how much she LOVES Houston.  She and her family moved her 10 years ago from Lebanon.  She asked me about my job and my family and we chatted comfortable while she beautified me.

When asked about her family back in Lebanon she became more serious.  Her aging parents are both having surgeries at the end of June and she cannot be with them because it is too dangerous for American citizens to travel to Lebanon right now.  She told me how sad and how guilty she feels for not being able to be near them.

"We all have something, Jennifer, you see," she said.  She smiled and went back to work.

We all have something.  I looked at this woman in front of me - really looked at her. It's amazing how, so wrapped up in my own issues, needs, hurts that I had not REALLY seen her until that moment.  I had not seen her as someone who, like myself, was feeling joy, or pain, or sadness or any number of things.    Sin - selfishness - has blinded me to those around me.  And they all have something.