Gifts From The Heart...

Oh, barf, that sounds SOOO Hallmark. Oh, well, I am open to suggestions for a better title, anyone?
I have received some truly beautiful gifts in the last year. All the friends and family who accompanied me to each chemo treatment, Br Robert shaving his head so that I would not be alone in my baldness, Harris offering me his hair for a wig, a hidden treasure in the wall at Czestochowa from Wojtek...
One of the most unusual I received from Rico and Masayo on their December trip to see us. It's called "A Thousand Paper Cranes", it is a traditional gift you give to the sick, a wish for good fortune. For the last two months, RIco Masayo, Rico's husband and Masayo's parents folded one thousand origami paper cranes by hand, then strung them together into rows and carried them to me through a grueling 19 hour flight from Japan to the US where they had to protect them from being crushed in flight. I was so blown away that I got choked up when I opened it- with my usual stoicism I couldn't read the description that came with the gift. Mom yelled "come here quick, Charity, it's Trinka's wedding all over again (a reference to my being assigned a reading at Trinx's wedding that I snffled and cried my whole way through- I was told later that no one could even understand what I was saying.) But as Charity was crying herself, I felt better about the whole thing.
It was very humbling- and to tell you the truth, I felt God's presence in the gift. At a time when I was tempted to be discouraged about what my future holds and what happens next, God sends me a gift through true friends that reminds me of his extravagance, his beauty, his generosity and his attention to even the tiniest details. And also reminds me to be patient- that the most beautiful things take time.