Lying in the soft, dewy grass I stared up at the blue sky. The sun smiled down, gifting its rays as a warm hug. A few snowy white clouds dotted the scene adding the finishing touches to the celestial canvas. “It’s perfect,” I whispered. 

“What is?” asked Dita sleepily. She lay beside me, her eyes closed.

“The sky. Adonai has painted a beautiful picture for us.”

 Dita’s eyes popped open. 

“His favorite color must be blue.” she said thoughtfully after some silence. 

“Why do you say that?” I asked, turning to watch her face. 

“Because the sky is so big and He chose to make all of it blue,” she stated, her eyes twinkling, and her mouth forming into a small smile. “Also, I’ve seen a lot of blue birds, and blue bugs, and blue flowers, and there are people with blue eyes, right Hadi?”

 I nodded. 

“If he made so many things blue,” she concluded, “He must really, really like that color.” 

“You do have a point there, Dita,” I said smiling. 

A long pause. 

“Hadi,”

“Yes, Dita”

“Why did Adonai let Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery? In Egypt Joseph must have been sad, and homesick, and missing his father terribly.” Her big brown eyes eagerly looked at me for an answer.

Wow, eight -year-olds sure have a way of asking random, hard-to-answer questions. 

“Well, sometimes Adonai allows awful things to happen and we don’t understand why,” I said slowly, trying to use the right words. “But when He is guiding our lives, we can trust that He will bring good things even out of the worst situations.” I looked at Dita. She gave me a satisfied smile. “Joseph’s slavery allowed him to store food during a terrible famine, and save not just our people, but many other nations as well.” I finished.

“He was just where Adonai wanted him.” Dita whispered, closing her eyes and softly leaning against my arm. 

‘He was just where Adonai wanted him.’

For some reason those words resonated with me. 

Several days after they would still be brought to my mind. 

I would think of them while buying food at the market…or drawing water from the well by our house… or watching the neighbor’s children while she went to the physician.

I don’t know why…