It'll never be perfect

My life has been a bit of a domino sequence lately and that does not work well with an already disorganized person. If you were to label the dominoes as a camping trip, strep throat, the first day of school, a husband traveling for work and just a general scatterbrain, you would have a fair picture of me scrambling around trying to get ready and then the doorbell ringing before the counter was wiped. My chum was coming for breakfast. I knew judging my imperfections were not the reason for her coming. She was wrung out from a thousand of life's pressures that she only dreamed could be as insignificant as a messy house. As she dashed tears from her eyes, I saw them settle on the messy front of my stainless fridge. It was the half focused glance of a born perfectionist who can tally what needs to be done in a room in thirty seconds. I apologetically mentioned needing to buy the special cleaner for stainless steel. I honestly didn't try too hard though. I don't owe her an explanation for how I live and she doesn't expect one. She gave me a vague nod, not caring one whit about my fridge door. I started chopping on a clean cutting board and she started sharing. I think you know that you are with a soul sister when every detail of their story interests you and you don't feel required to give solutions or advice. It is literally heaven. It was an easy morning, stripped of artifice with her telling me which ingredients to skip for her diet and me diving into a whole new recipe and throwing in every bit of imagination I had while listening to stories about people which I love to do. The result was delicious. We pushed dried play dough crumbles aside and sat at the table looking outside through a mud smeared sliding door as we pondered life's great mysteries and death's great pain. We ate well, cried a little, laughed a little and had grapefruit for dessert. Jesus needed me to take a little tender care of her that day. I suppose I could have missed all of that if I'd waited to invite her over when my house was cleaner which some days it actually is... But that was the day she needed some of Jesus love poured on which is actually no sacrifice for me because I just love that girl and every chance I have to visit with her.