Rambling Thought Bubbles
Just a few thought bubbles that have been hanging out in my brain lately.
I was recently listening to a podcast. Podcasts are some of my favorite things to put on—whether I’m driving to the grocery store, heading up to Dallas, or even just making a “road trip” across town to my local boutique. Road trips don’t have to be hours long or week-long adventures. They can be the little daily ones, too.
This time, I wasn’t even in the car. I was walking. But that’s the thing about podcasts—they go where I go. Sometimes I want something light and gossipy, sometimes I want to learn, and sometimes I just want to hear someone else’s story for a while.
On this particular day, a line stuck with me: God puts certain people in your life for a reason.
It made me stop and think. I remembered telling my daughter when she was in high school that she didn’t need a ton of friends to survive those years. She didn’t need the popularity contest. What she really needed was a few friends she could count on one hand. The kind of friends who would pick up the phone at 2 a.m. The ones who’d help her through the rough stuff. Other than her parents, of course.
We all have those people—the one or two or three we count on regularly. The people God plants in our lives. Some are family, some are friends, and some are friends who become family.
During our time living in the D.C. area, I remember not enjoying my time there much. It was only a short season for my husband’s work, but I can still picture myself sitting in my closet, crying. And I can still remember picking up the phone to call a friend—or two. They know who they are. Even though they were all the way across the country, God had planted them in my life for a reason. They answered. They listened. They let me ramble through my tears, and somehow their presence on the other end of the line helped me through whatever I was facing.
For me, one of those people today is a friend I check in with every Wednesday. It’s our little tradition. If I forget, I’ll do it Thursday morning, but it always happens. Even when there’s nothing new to share, we still touch base—just to say hi.
And then there’s my grandmother. She’s my best friend. Yes, my grandmother. I count on her too, just to check in, to hear her voice, to know how she’s doing. I believe God has her here for a reason.
So maybe this post is just rambling thought bubbles. Maybe it’s menopause brain. Sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s comforting. Sometimes the thoughts make perfect sense, and sometimes they don’t at all.
But here’s what I know: as the name of this blog reminds me, there’s no crying on Sundays. For once, I’m not crying—I’m just rambling. And there’s no shame in either one.
There’s no shame in crying. There’s no shame in rambling. There’s no judgment here.
Because everything has a reason. The people God places in your life, the places He plants you—none of it is by accident.
And maybe the funniest part of all this is that I managed to write these rambling thought bubbles without crying—on a Monday, no less. But as I sit here rereading and editing, the tears finally come. Because when I look back at the last few years, at where I’ve been and what I’ve walked through, it all catches up to me.
And that’s okay too. Because sometimes the tears come when we least expect them. And sometimes the reminder isn’t that we can’t cry—but that even in the crying, there’s still hope, still grace, and still the gift of the people God has planted along the way.
After all… there’s no crying on Sundays.
