“Who, being loved, is poor?”

~ Oscar Wilde

Sometimes it’s the little surprises, the unexpected gestures of love that mean the most.

Sometimes it’s those days when we least suspect that someone is thinking of us that we appreciate a kind word the most.

Sometimes I don’t know what I did to deserve the friends and family I have.

Then I remember…..

I don’t.

And then I have to wonder, when did I ever start thinking I deserved them? That I attained them in some way?                                                                                                              My family was God’s grace to me. He picked them out and placed them in my life and me in theirs.                                                                                                                                             My friends who encourage me in the way also were gifts from God. I met them in such odd and obscure ways that there could be no denying of the fact.

What sparked this sudden fit of revelation and appreciation, you ask?  I’m not quiet sure.

Maybe it was our bi-yearly move. The rotation that occurs between my sisters and I and our rooms, the changing of the guard. Maybe it was unearthing hidden treasures and gifts that are closely entwined with the memory of those precious souls that I have been privileged to know and to have known.

Or perhaps it was an unlooked for package in the mail.

In the age of junk mail how refreshing it is to receive a envelope with an hand printed address in warm friendly letters! Mine was a rather large envelope – you know, one of those white ones that cost about 5 bucks to send. It wasn’t hard for me to guess. After all, there is only one family I know who resides on Yorkshire Road. If this was a suspicion or inkling on my part, then my hypothosis turned theory when I finally got through the tape to the contents of the mysterious envelope. Inside was a happy, so-very-cute, little card, and the 2009 edition of Scrapebooks etc. Photography magazine put out by BH&G. Ohh Baby!

For me it was better than Christmas day, I’ve been consuming it like some people consume candy. I know it will be well worn within a month, I know I’ll go back over it again and again.

Who deserves to be so blessed?

No one. Not me. Not you. Not Joe and Jane next door. Not the Butcher, the Baker, or the Candlestick Maker. Deserving does not come into it.

God does.