I worked late yesterday and left my building at 6:00 pm. It was a ten hour day. I wanted to go home and put my feet up, maybe take a detox bath.

But I ‘m a mom, and have other things to do besides doing all I can to stay in complete remission.

Like go to Target.

Maddie had been to a birthday party Friday, but instead of running and getting a gift before the party, we were at the High School and then Police Station with my inner Liam Nisson planning all sort of vengeance on whoever stole her phone.

Which means we went to Target last night to get the gift, so she could give it to the friend today.

As we pulled in, we played the parking lot game. That’s when you pull into a parking lot and say out loud, “I ALWAYS get the BEST parking spot.”

And guess what?

Yup.

Right next to the carts.🙌🏻

I said we had to get in and out and didn’t have a lot of time, so it needs to be empty.

And guess what?

The only people I saw were employees wearing red shirts and about six customers.

The gift maddie wanted to get was right by the registers, she picked it out, then…

I said we weren’t done.

I said we had to get something else, but I didn’t know what it was.

I said to Maddie, “We just need to walk. I don’t know what I ‘m supposed to get, but there’s something else.”

Anyone else get that feeling?

In Target?

We walked down the long aisle toward the electronics, past the toys, and felt I needed to turn right. I went by the books, and one jumped out at me.

It was called, “100 Days to Brave “.

I picked it up, opened one page somewhere in the middle, and said, “This is it.”

I went to walk away and stopped.

I looked again and there, I felt I had to move a book. Behind it was another book, by a woman I recently heard give a talk about boundaries.

I said, “No, THIS is it”.

I felt I was supposed to have THAT book.

Braving the Wilderness.

It’s about true belonging. There are four practices of true belonging, which doesn’t require us to CHANGE who we are, but requires us to BE who we are.

1. Be vulnerable

2. Get uncomfortable

3. Learn how to be with people without sacrificing who we are.

4. Learn how to be with people without sacrificing what we value.

As we walked toward the register, I said to Madison that someday she is going to tell her children that the cancer made her mom crazy because she walked around Target thinking she was hearing and feeling God.

She replied that she wouldn’t.

Then she saw me scoop up seven bags of Bear Naked granola in my arms at checkout.

I think she might have changed her mind.

There was a short old man who looked a little crazy at the checkout rambling, ranting and raving about the five cents bag law. He was making the young man in front of us uncomfortable as well as the young man ringing us up.

I worked on shining my care bear light at him, but gave him “the mom look” when he started to go off the environment.

Don’t mess with my trees, herbs and mushrooms.

He walked away, and I said to the two young men that he must be a lonely old man with no one to talk to, and keeps warm in Target.

Also, he may have been a South Pole elf.

They laughed, and we all went our way.

I realized that Target got me again.

I went in for one thing, and came out with two books and seven bags of granola.

But it’s all good, because God told me too buy all of it.

(How many husbands are ok with that, I wonder?)

Today I am praying for a dear friend who had surgery yesterday that she has a quick and easy recovery, and for a former students father who is awaiting heart surgery, as well as all of the others who have asked me to pray.

Today may we all speak up when needed. Stop hiding and brave the wilderness with integrity and authenticity, with courage and kindness, and make wherever you are a sacred safe place for everyone, especially yourself.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Xoxo

Keri