I've been thinking about inflection points in life. How they can be both major and incredibly small things along the journey. I have plenty of major ones. But I also have a collection of small inflection points that are little markers fluttering in the breeze (and sometimes in the gale), marking the path I've walked.

One that came to mind recently was just a flash of a moment in time when I was 19. Here is the setting: Daniel, Dathan and I had traveled by train and boat from Moscow, Russia to Kristiansand, Norway to visit dear friends. The journey had been long, dirty and exhausting. We had eaten very little and pretty much nothing of nutritional value, (think Nutella and bread). It was the dead of winter, so I was wearing an oversized ugly blue coat that had been my pillow/blanket on many a cold hard floor/bench/seat. We were coming from Tbilisi, Georgia where we hadn't been able to properly wash anything in months due to a lack of hot water (and being a teenager)! So we arrived in beautiful Norway dirty, tired and pretty darn hungry.

Upon seeing these straggly teenagers at her door, my sweet friends mother promptly ushered me to their sparkly clean bathroom where she gave me fresh clothes to wear and I had my first HOT shower in months (literally) and she also gave all my clothes a solid washing. The word divine doesn't come close to that feeling. Being cared for, being clean, being welcomed in...I remember her bringing me my jeans after they had been washed and I thought she had bought me new ones because they were so clean! It was a small moment in time, very simple acts of service and an inflection point in my young life. 

I hope I can pay that kindness forward, and I hope I have. 

                                                           (Reeta and Birthe circa 1993)