50 Days of Gratitude: Day 39

All of my life I’ve been lucky enough to have wise elders who have come alongside, providing wisdom and perspective and care and experience and a listening ear. In elementary school there was Mrs. Myatt, my 4-H advisor, who once told us that we should learn to bake (that was the unit, baking) for the sheer pleasure of doing so, not because it was expected of us as females in the world. Under her tutelage I learned to make a mean Cherry Jumble.

In high school, there was Mrs. Lawhon, who was both one of my teachers AND my Sunday School teacher. Once, while navigating some high school friends drama, she told me that the pettiness we were embroiled in would just hold me back from everything else good I could be doing. There’s some good advice, no matter hold old we are! And Mrs. Priddy, who was both my high school choral director AND my choir director at church. (What can I say? It was a small town.) I remember when I was auditioning for my second year in All State Choir. I had a terrible case of bronchitis and she went to bat for me with the judges, telling them that she could personally vouch for me and that they should select me based on that. Which they did. Always go to bat for the person who is struggling, she said, in deed.

There are hosts of others. Oh, how lucky and how grateful I am! And I’m doubly grateful because today I got to have lunch with two of them. We sat overlooking the water and laughed and shared hard and vulnerable truths about life’s struggles and…dessert. We shared dessert. My heart is full of gratitude (and my tummy is full of dessert!)