Saved by strangers 

And today my gratitude goes out to the sweetest strangers one could bump into. At our afternoon coffee a British-born girl happily identified my Singaporean accent and said that’s where her father and family are from, and her open, happy manner set us an example and put W at ease. 

At dinner, the Dutch man next to us chuckled as we did when a lady walked in and asked the staff if a bearded man had come in; she was wondering if her husband had gotten there ahead of her. Then his food came and it was exactly what we had gotten. He explained by saying, “It’s good hey? I decided to copy my neighbour.” He had the warmest smile and the most jolly sparkling eyes. We chatted a bit: where we were from, where he’s from, how London is great, how the tartar sauce is phenomenal, the fish exquisite, the best thing he’s had. It made all of the earlier angst, rolling eyes and complaints seem less grievous. My stomach stopped churning a bit; my lost appetite and rising nausea settled down. That short conversation fortified the calm from my trip to the loo and after that my reading of Acts 17 on my phone, in the midst of dinner. My breathing settled and in my mind, that jovial, smiling man with a red checked scarf around his neck reminded me that there can be joy, contentment, ease and gratitude in this world.

It made the walk back, the prospect of the night and the coming days, the brokenness from seeing what I cannot help seem more manageable. 

And then it became easier to choose to see the heart, and perhaps love, than to see what I cannot fix and that pierces me again and again.