Moving to a city larger than any place I have ever lived has really opened my eyes.  You see and are exposed to so many things living in a small town doesn’t offer.  I tend to be most amazed by the wide variety of people I meet when I’m at work and the ones I see when I’m out and about.

The other day I was approached by a woman that was in need of my help.   She was hoping to create the dress of her dreams and wasn’t able to find the fabric like the one she had pictured in her mind.  Her English was a bit broken and I could tell she was feeling somewhat overwhelmed.  At one point when I was attempting to understand what type of fabric she was looking for she apologized for her bad English.  I was able to decipher what she had pictured in her mind but it was unfortunately something we didn’t have.  She eventually tweaked her plan a bit and we were able to find fabric that would work out quite well for her.   As our conversation went on I learned that she was from Brazil.  She exuded an incredibly kind and pleasant demeanor and I knew she was someone I could easily establish a friendship with and it didn’t matter that she wasn’t from America and she wasn’t from a small town and she wasn’t all that easy to understand.  There’s a chance I will never see her again, which is fine, but if I do I know I’ll enjoy hearing about the beautiful dress she created from the fabrics I helped her to choose.  There was a bit of a language barrier but we were able to bridge that gap and she left feeling very excited about her new dress.

Tonight I stepped up to the registers to give the cashier a break and while I was there I could see a very innocent young face approaching the check out.  I would guess she was around 14 years old.  She had beautiful light brown hair swirled into several loose curls that sort of playfully bounced around her pleasant face.  At first I was busy entering her items into the register and I have a tendency to visit while I do this.  I immediately gathered that she was someone that appeared to be a lot of fun as her voice was so sweet and upbeat.  I remembered her being as cute as a button when I saw her approaching the register but when I looked up to give her the receipt I noticed something about her I wasn’t expecting.  She had scars that covered the entire outer surface of both of her arms.  You could tell they were the result of some very deep cuts.  I was surprised but I had no desire to make her feel uncomfortable and by the pleasant smile she gave me when she left, I think I did okay.  I thought about her after she left and a part of me wanted to sit down and cry.  I have no way of knowing what that beautiful young girl has been through and I never will but in my heart I knew those scars led the way to some very painful days that were inevitably a part of her past.

After work I stopped into a store that was open until 11pm to pick up some inserts for the very expensive shoes I have that are just not performing as well as I had hoped.  There were two check outs open and they were quite full.  I saw a guy pushing some carts back to where the others were.  Due to the fact that he had bleach blonde hair in back and on the sides of his head and a tuft of jet black hair on top and a very unusual outfit he caught my eye.  I had no plans of staring at him and no intentions of making him feel uncomfortable.  For whatever reason he caught my eye and said, “I can help you over here if you’d like.”  I stepped over and thanked him and he displayed the demeanor of a dog that had been beaten many, many times.  He was very timid and shy and he couldn’t thank me enough for my purchase.  After helping me he left the check outs.  I’m not sure why he decided to just help me but I’m glad he did.  It got me home a few minutes sooner and after standing on my feet for 9 hours, I was very thankful.  There will never be more pages added to his story in my mind but I couldn’t help but wonder what they may have revealed.

I realize there’s no fix to all the broken in this world and there never will be.  There will always be hatred and prejudice no matter what and there will always be voices that fear they will never be heard.  Some would say I’m a bit too naive to be a city girl and that there aren’t enough hours in a day to address all the issues people have.  I won’t say they’re wrong but the one thing I can do is offer an encouraging word to a lovely woman that struggled with her English when she realized what she had pictured in her mind wasn’t available in our store.  I can offer a pleasant smile to a very timid young man that most likely had no desire to help one more person that had plans of judging him by his appearance and I can say a prayer for a beautiful young girl that had spent some very agonizing days healing from wounds that may have only healed on the outside.   As time goes on I’m becoming more aware of just how truly blessed I am and how blessed I have always been.