A Liquid Promise

I stood at Nordstrom make up counter and politely requested a free sample of wrinkle repair cream, the promotional item a friend urged me to collect. Having just purchased tube of favorite lipstick, I seized an opportunity to address aging skin. Lately, reflection in mirror appears more like my own grandma than twenty-year-old newly-wed who craved sunshine on youthful flesh. All lathered in baby oil, unsurfaced meditations on the virtue of skin protection chilling in back of mind as I listened to the Beatles and perused Seventeen magazine. Reigning thoughts back to present, a quick nod to sales lady, securing future appointment two weeks out, another free sample of magic serum on the horizon. A promise of visibly reduced wrinkles and lines, improved radiance and texture, oh a litany for this mature complexion, cart-wheels for heart. Today I noticed the back of the appointment card, words causing body to still, thoughts tracking back to forever past. To the teenage girl who sun bathed underneath beaming happy face in sky, to the wife who spoke harsh words and faltered with truth. To yesterday, unkind ruminations that swept through mind like dust storm in hot desert. The gritty past, coated like sandpaper with failures, regrets and mistakes, I stared at the folded card, and a gust of grateful breath expelled into merciful atmosphere. "A second chance to forgive the past," it read and I knew then that wrinkles are prizes hard won. Trophies of graces collected along the journey like opaque shells on sparkling sand. The more times I forgive, the more shells I cradle in upturned palm, and I practice daily, this forgiveness that plugs the soul holes and unlocks dark cells of fear and regret. C.S. Lewis penned: "Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive." Studying reflection in mirror, layers of forgiveness already shed from skin, I thought about calling the marketing team for this serum. Maybe they truly don't understand the plethora of chances we're given, that forgiveness is daily discipline, a beautiful eternal gift and it begins with me. Slathering on the liquid promise, I stared back at reflection, humming a tune from pardoning past: "With a love like that you know you should be glad. With a love like that you know you should be glad."