Thank You Tiffany

I’ve been pretty vocal about my feelings in this season of “recovery”.  I know the Father sees it as recovery though for me it has just felt sad.  Lots of negative emotions have been my experience (loneliness, broken heartedness, anxiety) and that was precisely why I ran as hard as I could away from the pain, for fear it would overtake me.

Thankfully, it hasn’t.

Thankfully I met Tiffany.

Yesterday I was living my life in a very “normal” way, and while I felt a little lighter than I had in a while, I still had no anticipation that God was ordering my steps in any particular way.  I only knew that I really needed my nails done.  Spring is here and summer quickly approaching and a girl needs to make sure she is looking her best since she is seen even more in these seasons💁🏾‍♀️😏. So I headed to the mall and chose a nail salon I’ve never attended.  At first I wasn’t even going to stay because there was a wait and I have never liked to wait (as God is very familiar with, and maybe you are too if you’ve read this blog for any significance of a time) but then I figured, “what’s 30 minutes?”

When you’ve waited years for something, 30 minutes is truly a drop in the bucket.

So finally it was my turn and I was really excited about the particular nail polish I had chosen (it is really the little things these days) and though the nail tech doing my nails was great at her craft, she wasn’t particularly conversational and I was actually uncharacteristically in the mood for a good conversation with a perfect stranger (you introverts out there know what an unusual occurrence that is).  And so when she shared she wouldn’t be able to do my pedicure because she was clocking out soon I wasn’t too disappointed.  I then followed a young woman to the pedicure station and received a really encouraging email regarding my new business (will share more on that at a later date) and was therefore consumed with following up on this new opportunity while the woman did my pedicure.  Now I was the silent one.  She made conversation and I politely responded but I was clearly distracted.  So it wasn’t until she moved me to the manicure station and polished my nails (because the previous nail tech wasn’t able to) that we engaged more.  I noticed how meticulous she was with her work and commented as such.  She responded and shared she is an artist, and that in fact she is also a writer and a poet.  I encouraged her in sharing her gifts and when she said she wanted to write books that told people’s stories to help encourage others in similar circumstances, well, I knew I had to share my own testimony of doing the same.  We engaged in a beautiful conversation about difficult seasons, as she too was in a recovery season, and I gave her some resources that have helped me as well as those I have written.  It touched my heart so much when she looked up to the ceiling and said, “OK, God, I hear you!”  Wow.  Look at God. Using me in an unlikely place at an unlikely time to encourage one of His own while I am still healing.  Still recovering.

He does great things.

One of my encouragements to this woman (who told me her name was Tiffany) was to ask God, “What good can come from this season?”  He works all things for the good so how can good come from such trauma and loss?  She nodded her head in agreement taking in every word, even as sadness laced her eyes.  I knew that sadness.  I had it myself.  But now I was feeling something new in the midst of it.  Something I hadn’t felt in a while.

I felt hope.

Hope for the future.  Speaking with Tiffany reminded me of purpose and it let me know (as I’m sure the Father intended) that He is using even my pain to help others.  See, I could not have related to Tiffany before this season.  I would have sympathized because I am an intercessor and my heart is sensitive to other’s pain naturally, but I would not have known for myself what devastation felt like.  At least, not the kind of devastation she was dealing with.  When one hard thing after another keeps happening and it gets hard to believe that good things can happen.

I left the mall yesterday smiling.  It was the first time I had smiled and felt happy without any pain in so long.

As I walked to my car, I couldn’t stop smiling.

I am so encouraged by this experience and others that have happened the last few days.  It has been an amazing week and it is only halfway through💕.

But its not even just the events themselves that have encouraged me, its the fact that I can feel joy as a response to them.

Joy in the midst of darkness.

Joy in the midst of pain.

Truly He is with us.

Here is the finished product of Tiffany’s handwork:

Thank you Tiffany.

SHALOM