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Even as I took the lipstick and the lotion, I knew that I might never use them- at least not completely.

It was the day before Mamaw's funeral, and three of the four girl cousins were sitting around the coffee table in my mother's living room, going through Mamaw's few remaining personal effects. The outfits that she had worn at the nursing home were clean and folded neatly in a laundry basket. Love, Michelle and I are all too "big boned" to wear much of Mamaw's clothes, so we sent the really cool sweat suit (Mamaw was always in fashion) home with Aunt Theresa for cousin-in-law Angela. Love took a jean shirt that was embroidered with fall leaves.

Now we were sorting through her last batch in a long line of Estee Lauder cosmetic samples. There were a few lipsticks, some perfume, three or four bottles of various and sundry wrinkle creams, and two really cool make-up bags. Like I said, Mamaw was always in fashion.

We granddaughters had done this many times before-digging through Mamaw's drawers filled with loads of unused beauty things. But this time was different. I can't speak for the other cousins, but for me it was a tenuous balance between the joy of getting a few things you would never buy, and the pain of knowing that it was the last time we would ever receive this little "perk" from Mamaw.

Seeing how we are all over thirty, each of us decided that we had to spread the wrinkle cream around equitably. Michelle needed new eye shadow, so she took what was there. I think Love took some lipstick, but left the two make-up bags for Michelle and me. "I've got too many bags already," she said.

So I picked the orange bag with gold grommets and put a couple lipsticks, some perfume, the wrinkle cream, and a face powder brush in my bag, and zipped it up.

Today, I unzipped the bag and got out one of the lipsticks- the one that is somewhere between coral and brown. As I looked in the mirror and slowly put it on, I thought of Mamaw and all the ways she had influenced me. People would be able to see the lipstick, but they wouldn't necessarily be able to "see" all the other things Mamaw had taught me: how to suck it up and quit crying even when I didn't want to, how to work continuously until you fall into bed at night, how to make cranberry salad, and how to use a spoon the right way.

Then I thought of the old jar of burnt sugar flavoring in my kitchen drawer at home- a jar I got from my Grandma Goins' kitchen when she died. I used the flavoring a little bit when I first got it, but I don't want to use it all up. I want to keep it--in the drawer I open 10 times a day-- to remind me of all the ways Maxine Goins flavored my life: with a cheerful heart and an others-centered disposition.

And then I think of the influence I want to have on others-- not just my own children, but on the teachers I work with, the checker at the grocery store, and the kids that pass through my classroom everyday.

I want to be the color that brightens their face or the flavor they find sweet--but not so they will remember me like I want to remember my grandmothers. I want to be like Paul who says in 1 Corinthians 10:33:

So how is your color? How is your fragrance?

"Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

Called To Brokenness