I hadn't seen her in months. Only sadness glinted from her eyes.  I could hardly meet her blue gaze, the pain almost blinding.  "I don't know if you heard. My daughter died of an overdose last year." My mind galloped.  I remembered that her daughter was not much past thirty, and ahe had a young son. My mouth opened, but I was speechless.  We were at a book fair.  She was volunteering, a glass coffee carafe filled with water secured in one hand, getting ready to brew a pot for the authors gathered.  "Oh my God," I managed to whisper.  "I had no idea. I'm so very, very sorry."  With her free hand she used her ring finger to swipe under both eyes, now pooling with tears, like skies weeping. 

I headed back to my booth.  I felt disappointed. My table was in a hidden alcove.  I had worked diligently on the display, creating a sort of vintage motif--a minature typewriter, a bronzed baby shoe, a pair of opera glasses, a sepia-toned photograph of my mother taken in the forties.  I draped a leopard-print scarf around a shabby chic shelf, my books scattered throughout the design on stands made of iron. I sat next to my table waiting for people to take a look at my wares.  And sitting there I recognized something in me that was wrong--what Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, calls being spiritually out of alignment--it was like I needed supernatural chiropracty.  There I sat with this voracious desire to be seen and heard.  Discontent.  Wanting, wanting, wanting--panting.  Even those two words so similar--WANT, PANT. I sat hidden, covered up.  No one was looking but God.

And it is often in the secret place that God performs the chiropractic maneuver that realigns me with His ways.  He seemed to say, "You see from your natural viewpoint, and it looks upside-down.  But I see the whole picture, the magnificent kingdom that I'm allowing you to reflect.  You can be thankful that I see you, that you are accomplishing my desires, even though no one stops to look, even though few can know what it has taken for you to keep writing.  Trust me.  Today you were here as a conduit of hope for another hidden woman.  Your hug, your few words were my comfort to her."

At the end of the afternoon, the dear woman with the sad eyes came by as I packed up.  "It was so good to see you again," she said.  She carried an empty coffee pot now, on her way to clean up after the event.  A servant.  I thanked her for voluntering, for telling me about her daughter. "I'm praying for you," I said.  Our eyes met once again, this time her gaze, still sorrowful, reflected some hope.  "My faith is what gets me through.  And my grandson is okay. He's living with his dad. He has two stepsisters, so I have some girls to love."   She was already moving on, looking to give, to love, even in the grief.  "Oh God,  Oh God, thank you for your ways, your superior wisdom.  The things you do in the secret place."

Keep your eye on me; hide me under your cool wing feathers.~Psalm 17:8 (The Message)