January is over; February has begun.  How can that be, already?

It has now been over a year since my last blog post.  Some folks have asked me about that.  The blog still exists, but the simple truth is I lost my words in 2023.

Since I lost my words in 2023, it follows that 2023 nearly defies words. 

What I think of as the “COVID years” (2020-2022) were hard.  The stress of dealing with all things COVID and the consequences and fallout from that both personally and professionally was difficult. Yet, 2023 came along and told those years to “Hold his beer”.

How’s that for drama? 

As a rule, I avoid Drama and his little sister Negativity, but to do so would be to also avoid the Truth and Transparency. Life can be hard sometimes. Life is hard sometimes.  Stress, chronic pain, and depression showed up in big ways in 2023 and it was hard.  No sugar coating that. Perhaps being “real” will help someone else who is struggling, though.

Now that 2023 is in the rear-view, I still see The Hard, but I can also see Mercy sprinkled in, little bits of encouragement from God when I needed it most.  I can even see that Mercy in little things today, too, if I am still and look for it.  These bits of Mercy did not immediately deliver me from The Hard, as we always hope they will, but they have sustained me and kept me going.

Mercy came in the shape of several things- little things like encouragement from friends.  An unexpected kind word.  A meal when I wasn’t feeling up to cooking.  And I was doused in a bucketful of Mercy when corrective surgery relieved chronic and intense pain.  Maybe I’ll write about some of those things in the future, but for today, I want to talk about the neighbors. 

And about bread.

Our neighbors are a young couple; we are nearly old enough to be their parents.  They are also Good People, the kind of people everyone hopes their children grow up to be. 

Today, Iceman bought something heavy.  Really heavy.  It came in a long box that weighed 340 pounds!  There was no way I was going to be able to carry “my half” of that load off the trailer, so he reached out to our neighbor, Charlie.  No, Charlie is not really his name, but since I have not asked if I can write about him, we’ll roll with that.  Charlie, and his wife Charlotte (nope, not her real name either), came over just a few minutes after the call for help went out.  Charlie happily carried my half of that box and maybe some of Iceman’s half, too.  Charlotte assisted as needed.  While the heavy lifting was going on, I got to hold their precious little son.

I definitely got the best part of that deal!

A bit later, a text arrived from Charlotte saying there was fresh baked bread on our porch for us.  She’s a brilliant baker and a generous person; we often get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. As I retrieved Charlotte’s gift, so many words sprang to mind, but JRR Tolkien’s were foremost.

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

-Bilbo Baggins, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I realized that was the perfect word for 2023.  Stretched. 

Stretched Thin.

I’m sure many of us feel that way today.  I think many of us find our jobs, and many other things in life, more demanding than ever.  Everyone I know, including myself, carries significantly more stress than we used to. 

But, as I looked at that bread on my counter and acknowledged that I felt Stretched Thin, I also felt cared for.  I have baked bread before, it takes effort. As does the blackberry crumble, the biscuits with homemade jam, the cookies, and other good things that have also found their way from Charlotte’s oven to our front porch.  She puts in extra effort so she can share with us.  How wonderful is that?  It is never taken for granted.

She does not know about my Hard Year or even my Hard Day today, yet her caring and sharing brought a smile to my face and a lightness to my heart that was not there earlier.

Charlie’s willingness to literally carry my half of the load today is an act of kindness that will not be forgotten.

This post is about so much more than bread and helping with heavy things.  It’s about loving your neighbor in small ways.  It’s about being willing to step up and help someone carry a heavy load- figuratively or literally.  It’s about the willingness to show kindness in your everyday life- a little bit of kindness goes a very long way to someone with a heavy heart.   

I am not magically better.  I still feel like I am running on empty a lot of days.  But I do feel better than I have lately.  I feel loved as I look back and see the Mercy in my life this last year.  I feel cared for as I see that loaf of bread on the counter on that beautiful plate.  I have a renewed desire to put the hard-earned lessons of 2023 in place- to refocus on my faith, to re-calibrate my work/life balance, to try new things, to spend time with family and friends, to engage with things that bring joy.  I have learned these things are not simply Important, they are Imperative.

Thank you, Charlie and Charlotte, for helping me find my words again.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

– The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, Isaiah 43:1b-3a.