Hope and Faith

The other day at the park I was standing with my friend Kate R.
A man came up and asked me the time.
It was 11:11 am.
I said it outloud, feeling like, "You have got to be kidding me."
He walked away.
Kate said, "Make a wish!"
Then she looked at my face (she had read my blog post about numbers and 11:11) and said, "Oh yeah, you wrote about that number."
I stammered, exasperated , "I just don't know what to do with it!
And she said, with a big kind smile,

"Oh, I think it's just about hope."

Then we got distracted by children and went off to do other things, but I think her simple generous answer rings true.
It's about hope.


Another time she and I were talking about some parenting or financial conundrum and I asked her, "What are you going to do?" and she answered with a shrug, "The universe will provide. Worrying will do no good."
That was months ago, but it came back to me recently.
I have been stricken with financial anxiety lately and the fear I will always work more than I want to and spend less time with my family than I want to. The only way I can seem to make more money to lessen the money anxiety is to spend time away from nature and my family which leads to a different sadness and anxiety. Ugggh.

I've been stopping the sad angry spiral with:

"The universe will provide."

Azalea's passage was so peaceful and timely. I feel so blessed that things turned out like they did. I miss her. Tonight I really miss her.
But something in her sweet passage has deepened my faith, convinced me the chaos of our lives has a beautiful gracious meaning.

I'm going to step a bit more into that faith.

We'll see what happens.