February 14

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm not usually someone who would be interested in highlighting valentine's day...kinda too commercialized and cheesy. But my heart is a little lighter today. Not because of Hallmark.

I received a package in the mail yesterday. The stuff in the package really wasn't what made my heart lighter. It was the overall message. My friend did something very practical that expressed that she was thinking of me. Simple and received. It breathed hope into that aching muscle of my heart.

It reminds me that it really does not take much honest movement toward a person's heart to release floods of healing.

In the movie, Wit, Vivian Bearing is participating in an agressive treatment for terminal cancer. She is reflecting on the work she has done throughout her life as a scholar of the poet John Donne. She recalls that she devoted a major portion of her life assisting her mentor in editing a collection of John Donne poems. Her point, after this labor of love and work, was that she was mentioned by her mentor in the preface of the completed work. One line of thanks. That was all she needed to feel appreciated and connected to the work. Just a small, honest movement of being seen, known, and appreciated. This same mentor was the one who showed up and offered presence, simple presence, "being there" in Vivian's moment of utter pain in the shadow of death.

It doesn't take much.