She says she’ll teach me.
November 9th, 2013 seems a life-time ago but really, just six months separate us from a lunch off campus that turned into afternoon coffee, too, and a 3am chat about friendship and queso and everything in between.
Maybe it was that first afternoon when we sat at the Starbucks counter, I googled my own name, and read my words out loud for the very first time.
Or when she listened and the tears began to roll from the corners of her eyes.
Maybe it was her insistence that I conquer a silly fear, sit on a wet piece of cardboard, and slide down the hill.
It could have been when the stress of finals had built up too high and so we called just to pray over the phone, studying on different sides of campus.
Or maybe when we explored the city and watched the sun play over Birmingham.
There was that time I spoke and faced my biggest fears, and she wrote a poem to introduce me. Maybe that was it.
I don’t know when exactly I gave her access to my heart, but I did. There are those people who come into your life for a season, a chapter or two, and then the story continues and the season changes.
She is not one of those.
It’s like I found a better version of myself in a sea of strangers, and somehow I’ve known her my whole life.
I spent the better part of three years absolutely certain community was harmful, dangerous, and risky. I believed love would always leave, always run, always fail.
She shows me it isn’t true.
And so when she talks about how we’re sisters at heart, when all I can think to say is that I don’t really know what sisters are…
she says she’ll teach me.
And it’s my turn for the tears to roll grateful from the corners of my eyes. It’s never too late, and beauty can come from anywhere – even the places too burnt for life to begin again, even there hope springs anew.
I can’t read these verses without thinking of this girl. I’m grateful, thankful, and counting the blessing every day. {This is for you, love. You’re my person. You’ll teach me sisters, I’ll love you back to community. “Because I knew you I have been changed for good.”}
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:3-6, 9-11
Tonight I’m joining the community over at Lisa-Jo’s for story-telling and painting wide and vivid and brave. Even when it’s messy. No edits, just real, raw, honest, ordinary words.
