SWB: I found love letter bread

Sleeping with bread is an examen to access to week past and see the reality and effect of the things in live that leave us in want and filled to the brim. Even before I attempted to write anything for my post this week, I felt as if my brain had been keeping a ruthless tally of life and finding my living on the lacking side of bread baking.

Late last night I tried to fall asleep, but my mind was full with all the things that needed to be accomplished and unfortunately I kept recalling how I felt I'd dropped the ball on many levels throughout the week.

For one reason or another, last week, I felt I somehow was letting someone down or missing one thing or another that I shouldn't miss. All this goes to show that I'm human, but I especially don't like it when I disappoint those closest to me.

As I woke, I recalled a dream I'd had in the midst of this tallying of what was done and what I still had to do and what was done. In my dream, a wise author who I have a great deal of respect for, came to me to say what I was doing with my life mattered and that what I was working so hard for was making a significant human difference. I woke up this morning feeling reassured and ready to face the new day, but then those shortcomings kept trying to creep back into my mind to reassert their presence.

I think my dream last night was my minds way of helping me cut myself some slack, or maybe I'm hoping that those in the waking hours will do some slack cutting too. Not to make excuses, but I've been living life in overdrive too much of late. Dream or no dream, I know that is a pace I need to scale down on soon in order to take a pause before the machine of back to school schedules resume.

It's difficult when working for the best result in one area on life and seeing success, when you find other areas that usually run smooth, begin to sputter and stall.
Then again, all my talk of grace in last weeks SWB post is something I may need to reinstall into my heart for this new week of possibility yet ahead of me.

Then, without any expectation of it, grace stopped by my home for a visit. I found a letter in my post box that made all this struggle with my shortcomings fall away.

The outside of the envelope read...
'Opening my door and being nice to a new neighbor ten years ago has sure paid big dividends! I'm one lucky lady. Thank you.'

I became more curious and carefully opened the card...
The front of the card had a kitten leaning on a lion with the words "It's so nice to have a friend to lean on..."

Inside the card were written words of encouragement many times sweeter than the ones I'd heard in my dream the night before.

'You are loved very much and have a special place in my heart... don't be afraid to lean on me too!
L'

On this day when I wondered if I'm making a difference in the world, I was given a tangible, solid, expression of love that will be the bread that surpasses the things I kept looking at saying - "this is good, but it would be better if...".

Yes I need to keep growing, but some days, being told you are loved by a neighbor is the best bread a person can hold on to.

In the words of Monty Python, "Always look on the bright side of life."