3-21-18 UNDERSTATEMENT

I have this friend, Leslie, who lives just up the street from me. She is the personification of understatement. She is beautiful to behold. I mean, God graced her with physical loveliness, and she's been a good steward over it. But she never appears to think of herself as beautiful. She is mother to five dynamic kids, who are adults now, and stepmother to that many more.
My friend Leslie's seen a heap of trouble in her lifetime, though you'd never guess it by looking at her in a grocery line. Without betraying the story that only she is entitled to share, I will tell you that she knows the dark places that come to families who deal with substance abuse, the heartache of love lost, and the sorrow of watching loved ones suffer in physical, spiritual and emotional ways. I've known Leslie through all of this... at least much of it... and there is a calmness she emits that belies the impact within her. A while back, when I served as Young Women's president in our church congregation, I felt deeply compelled to ask for her to serve with me, thinking it was the girls that needed her influence. But I realize now it was pretty much me who needed her. 
Les lives part time in Texas and part time in Utah, since she married Gary. It's a long and fairly complicated love story, Les and Gary, and I won't take you there but to say that I love and cherish both of them, whether they are stuck down there in Texas or back here in Utah where they belong! (tongue in cheek humor here. Leslie fell in love with a Texan. You know Texans.)

Leslie is a comma where I am an exclamation mark! She has learned to see life in threads of hope, trusting that the Lord is in charge in the end. I tend to take it in noisy chunks with solid beginnings and endings, often with a bit too much drama. So it is a great comfort for me to have such a close friendship with Leslie.

Because Leslie is understated, she is safe. Emotionally safe, for me. At girls camp one year there were not enough beds in the place we were staying. The Young Women were in sleeping bags on the floor, but my poor old chunk of flesh does not do well on hard floors. So Les suggested we share one of the beds. If you know me, this is not something I'm super excited about; sharing a bed, unless I'm sharing it with one of my daughters, grandkids or Dave Connors. But it surprised me how calm it felt to know that this understated friend was beside me. I pondered it that night, laying in bed with someone other than my family (this is getting to sound a little strange but stay with me here). I got to thinking about how beautiful it was that Leslie made me feel safe. I judge myself harshly, and feel self-conscious quite often. I remember lying there and thanking the Lord for this good woman, whose heart accepted me wholly, without judgment, and who anticipated nothing. I thought it strange that the word "anticipate" would come up in that prayer, but it seemed to fit. Leslie has learned to not anticipate the outcome. Life has thrown her for so many loops her lifeline might resemble a Slinky. But she rolls along, remaining true to herself and her God, letting others make their own decisions and not owning their decisions as if they were her own. She lives the Serenity prayer, and trusts that those she loves are entitled to do the same without her prodding. She really is quite remarkable.

Which is why she is the personification of understatement to me. She cannot see that she is remarkable. Though,she is.

Leslie and the latest of her dozens of grands