Umbrella in the rain

Couple today's rainy afternoon with this week's quarantine, brought on by, Wooly's bout with a pink eye infection, and we're all doing our best to stave off cabin fever.  Columbine asked today when the collective house arrest will be over.  Until we can put this pinky mess behind us, we'll keep puttering around, waiting for Wooly to stop seeing the world through his bacterial rose colored lenses.

In a moment as unspectacular as the many moments before it, I stood quietly washing dishes this afternoon at my kitchen sink.  Today's rainy day special included a movie for the kids.  So while my children plugged themselves happily into the television, I somehow found the determination to use the downtime to wash the dishes instead of lounge around.  This kind of mental willpower is rare form, I assure you.
The rain came pouring down, causing gutters to overflow and our house to echo with the pounding sound of water.  Tropical rain knows no bounds, this I have learned from living here.  And while I love the sounds and smell of these torrential storms, I curse the standing water they bring and the mosquitoes that follow.  Other than that eternal angst, a rainstorm in Hawaii is a beautiful thing.   

During this sudden downpour and from the vantage point of my kitchen window, I saw my neighbor pull into her drive.  Without hesitation, another neighbor quickly charged from his front door, braving the storm with two umbrellas in hand.  Like a positioned, but unpaid bellman, he held open the door, handed her an umbrella to secure herself and then ran around to the other side of her car to help with the others.  With one free hand he unbuckled and transferred one of her two little children safely inside.

My heart was filled with joy as I watched this unrequested and unexpected kindness play out across the street.  Thinking it might preserve the mental image longer, I wanted to dash away, grab my camera and snap the picture of my good-hearted neighbor and his unheralded helpfulness.  Knowing that this couldn't be the case, I stood at the sink, focusing a mental picture to hold fast within my mind and heart.  A moment caught through the lens of the heart lasts longer than one snapped with a camera anyhow. 

Surely, my neighbour could have managed to get herself out of the car, even with the rain and the kids in tow.  Of course, they would have been soaked from the effort, but still, not entirely impossible to manage.  Yet, unexpectedly, someone came to help.  I thought it was such a beautiful moment of goodness.  Nothing spectacular, but noble in it's simplicity.  Sort of like washing dishes.  And caring for a sick child.

Then it hit me.  My life, my everyday, is filled with these small, seemingly insignificant moments.  A tapestry of kind deeds woven throughout the years, for my family, mostly for my children.  Everyday I serve the God I love, by serving them, my children, His children.  And like the unexpected umbrella in a rainstorm, the sacrifice is noticed.  Always.  Perhaps by no one other than God himself.  And I imagine that the simple joy I felt, as I quietly witnessed my neighbor's act of goodness, is what brings Him the most happiness, too.

Always on the grow,