Slightly humbling is the phrase that comes to mind when thinking about sharing this with you.

For the past two weeks we have talked about perspective in the canola fields – my field trip into a canola field led me to find thistles just as plentiful in the canola yet from a distance your eye could not pick them out. Perspective – I vowed to look at my life and see if I had allowed any “weeds” to sneak in my life. Some had and I am allowing God to work on me to deal with them.

Gods sense of humor is one of those life marvels. If I am going to write – God is going to test me and see how “real” I am and thus I have to be real with you.

At the beginning of February I went to the Vancouver mainland to help my Mother who has stage 4 Alzheimer’s get ready to attend my nieces wedding. We got her hair permed, shopped for an outfit –but not with her, tried it on (which is actually one of the hardest things) and checked on shoes. Stage 4 means that my mother has about a 30 minute memory window. I repeated myself a lot. For example when we were trying on the outfit, we would get the skirt and the top on about which time she would say, “where am I going again?” and we would start on the wedding story. Then we would try the dressy jacket and shoes and she would ask, “what do I need these shoes for?” and we would begin again.

The people who care for our elderly and aged are amazing folks, my heart is truly blessed at the way they take care of people like my mom – with respect and dignity. We do not thank them enough and maybe we do not really “see” them.

Back to me – I was feeling pretty good – got all the necessary things done, thought I was doing well emotionally. On day four of my trip I was getting ready for the day and had curled my hair. I was putting in the “curl paste” – something that makes your curls stay in longer when I stopped to read the container. For the past three days I had been putting hand cream into my hair – not hair paste.

I was rather taken back. All it required was reading the label but I had grabbed a jar similar in shape and assumed it was the hair paste. I felt rather silly at this point.

But the lesson for me came when I thought it through – in life we do things instinctively – without really taking the time to “look”. I had grabbed what I thought was the right thing but in doing it aimlessly – I got it wrong. I had wandered around Vancouver for 3 days with hand cream in my hair.

I giggle over this now but it has caused me to think carefully about how many times we instinctively do something and not really take the time to “see” what is in front of us – people, things, Gods daily provisions.

I want to be a person who “sees”.