I have short legs. I'm not short, but I do have short legs. The primary way this affects my life results in pants that are a bit too long, but thank goodness for Dona.
Dona is our alterations friend.  Since my mom is the reason for my short legs (thanks mom), we both benefit from Dona's skills.

Now, at this point you may have stopped reading or perhaps you're thinking, "wow, another pointless ramble," but stick with me.  I have a point.

Dona is just one person on a long list of, seemingly, random, yet meaningful relationships that my parents invest in within our community.  I have watched my parents minister over the last 23 years to people in our day to day lives.  I'm not only talking about church people, family members, or homeless people.  I have watched them invest in lives of the forgotten. I'm talking about people in the service industry.

Let me introduce a few to you:
Dona.  Dona is an Albanian refugee.  She has been in the USA for 10 years and she owns and runs her own alterations business. As most Balkan personalities, hers is one of strength and stoicism.  She rarely smiles and rarely makes conversation, unless you are... a Wynne. I love watching Dona's face light up as she sees Janet's daughter walk in the door. This is because, though my mom is paying for a service, she is determined to serve back.  My mom asks about Dona's life and well-being.  She even keeps a present under the Christmas tree with Dona's name on it.  She is more than a seamstress, she is soul.

Sam. Car buying is only fun for the soulless.  Last summer when I got rid of my beloved jeep, I was on a search for a car.  It was traumatizing.  My sweet dad and I went everywhere, eventually ending up in Waco buying a car, but one the way we stopped at Sam's. Sam owns Cars-4-U, a small pre-owned car dealership in White Settlement. Sam is a jovial and kind person by nature, but he loves my dad! Sam remembered my dad from looking for a car for my brother a year prior. I remember watching my dad interact in a sincere inquiring conversation with Sam. No bells. No whistles. No scheming, just respect.  Now, this may not seem ground breaking, but I just remember being refreshed that there are still real people in the world and I could tell that Sam felt the same way.  He even begged my dad to return and let Sam heat the dent out of his front bumper, free of charge.

Ray and Elizabeth. Ray and Elizabeth own Capri's, an Italian food restaurant that my family adores (order the chicken lasagna).  Ray is from Kenya. Elizabeth is from Tanzania. They bought Capri's about three years ago (I could be way off on that). We love Ray and Elizabeth. They are good people, but naturally, as a Wynne, we've got to take it a step further.  My parents have invited Ray and Elizabeth as well as their son and Ray's mom, to our home to eat, fellowship, look at cows.  They have invited them to church and made them the staple for Monday lunch after the Women's Bible Study. They have truly impacted the lives of this family

These are just a few lives touched and changed by Paul and Janet Wynne.  I could go on and on about the City Cleaners folks, Pro nail, or the all of our teacher over the last 30 years.  They don't do it to be noticed or because it's easy. They do it because it is the call of Christ upon their lives.  So though I am doomed to hear for the rest of my life, 

"You are just like your mother" 

or

"That sounded like your father"

I will equated it with being found an exceptional servant and I will smile in appreciation.

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.

On my way to get dinner, I spent some time talking with God.  You see, we haven't been speaking much lately.  My silence isn't a result of a traumatic event or crisis of faith, but it's an occasional occurrence bred from some unknown source that I have repressed and buried so deep that I don't even know the root on a conscious level.

Anyway, I am driving along and asking God to allow me to rest in the knowledge that he knows my future.  He knows when I sleep, when I rise, when I will get married, when I will settle down, what I will be doing next year, two years, 30 years.  He knows.  His omniscience is supposed to be reassuring, yes?

Well, as I began to just sit, I realized that the source of my recent resistance to prayer is that I KNOW God knows. I began to realize that I was bitter that God has my days numbered and planned and yet he is allowing me to sit here and stress. 

So, since I've broken my silence, my metaphorical intestines revolted and a flood of word vomit spewed. 

I want to know.  I need to know.  Why won't you tell me? Don't you find this a little mean?  I don't get it. What's the harm in me knowing at least what lies ahead for me next year? I mean, how strange and creepy is it that someone knows you better than you? It's a little odd, you've got to admit. 

On my way back home, I rolled down my window to share in the crisp fall breeze and the vivid colors of the sunset.  The Shins New Slang played as the perfect soundtrack as the green in the trees contrasted subtly, yet beautifully against the darkening blueness of the fading evening sky, and a that point I began to rest in the knowledge that God knows my future and that was enough.