The illusion that I steer my own ship is strong. I came home to a stack of mail that required attention, including bills to satisfy, and checks to deposit. There was even an ostentatious deed declaring that our mortgage has ended. The house is ours. What more tangible proof could there be that John and I are self
determining adults? We have earned our way.
Yet the energy of the last two weeks flowed from an alternate stream. My daughters magically clinched the reservations at gorgeous apartments in Grenoble, Annecy, Geneva, and Como. Numbers and names careened through the air between their phones and some invisible destination. All that was required of me was to enjoy it. The luxury of
transportation, too, happened with no tangible evidence. The drivers almost never checked whether we had actually paid.
Airplane travel, is different. At multiple stations we each had to hand over serious documents convincing people we will never see again that we are who we claim to be. Not that they really care. Yet these instances of autonomy were the bookends of an
otherwise fluid experience.
It was never me who ordered gelato, or did the grocery shopping for obvious reasons. I was the recipient of deliciousness at every turn, free to soak up the musicality of Italian voices. We smelled the honeysuckle covering a stony wall, and looked up at fifty balconies festooned with geraniums and fresh laundry. We sipped apricot juice atop
the Fort de La Bastille, and splashed our feet in the frothy edges of Lake Como. We saw three weddings being celebrated by the water. The reprieve from ordinary life was just long enough for me to remember.
This is how God wants it.
His blessings
are neither bartered, nor bought. They arrive in the breath that pumps through our lungs each morning, regardless of whether or not we know how aspiration works. There is no fare we can tender that purchases such liberties. God proffers such bounty for another reason entirely.
Because He cares who we are.