She looked down at the
photo in my phone and said, “I haven’t smiled like that in a long time.”
I knew what she meant, but I wanted to know more. “Why? You look so happy. You should smile more often.”
“My birthdays are just
another day for me. I haven’t celebrated or done anything special since I was a
teenager. Thank you. This means a lot to me,” she fixed her eyes
on the table as her voice broke.
She's shed enough tears over hard circumstances. Tears on her birthday seemed unnecessary, so I smiled and patted her back. “I’m glad you’re here. Have some cake.”
There are times when I wonder if our living in Grant Park
means anything or makes a difference at all. We don’t seem like the right
candidates on paper. Grant Park is a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. We
don’t even speak Spanish. As far as I can tell, Joel is one of a few Caucasians
in a two-mile radius. What about Asians? I’ve yet to meet any.
And yet, we’ve somehow met some neighbors who trust us, this
odd couple that doesn’t quite belong and are just a little too eager to make
friends. Last night, we celebrated a neighbor’s birthday with her kids and her
sister. We actually met Calvina about a year ago at a neighborhood clean-up
event. As a single mom of four kids, with a challenging past, she constantly
struggles to make ends meet. She moved out to Phoenix to get away from negative influences and commit to sobriety, but conflict and family troubles
back at home on the reservation pulled her back there several times.
She recently came back in our lives and has been over to our
house for community group and attended church with us. Life is unpredictable
for Calvina and her kids. I hope and pray that they’ll be in our lives for a
while.
For now, I hang on to these moments of joy that we can
share. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we’ve only been in the neighborhood
for two years. For every moment of joy, there are five more moments
of doubt. Doubts of whether Grant Park was the right move, whether we are cut
out for this, whether anything is going to happen at all.
I am so thankful that God is faithful and patient in the midst
of our doubts. It’s ironic that the last post was about the house that burned to
the ground. I remember writing that post and forcing myself to write the last
paragraph about trusting in God. It was a small voice of clarity that told me
to believe when things seemed impossible. Six months after that, a year after we began our search, we’d find our home.
