As it was, upon sitting down in space number 2 in Starbucks, a girl asked if she could sit with me before seeing that it was, in fact, me whom she was asking. It was my coursemate.
Of course I was delighted to have her sit with me, regardless that we had never spoken really before.
I offered her a cookie (baked lemon lavender cookies at Eli's idea. Note to self: always trust Eli's cooking ideas) and we began to chat.
We ran from how long I'd be in the country to young marriage (I'm leaving in June to make it for Kira's wedding) to Presbyterians (I guess in this country, Presbies get married very young). Naturally, this led to me asking after her own religious beliefs and her divulging a lot of pain and bitterness about the religious abuse she (and a heck of a whole lot of people in this country) has experienced.
I asked a couple handfuls of probing questions (as I am known to do) and, after fully answering them, she asked me after my own religious views.
Now, there's something I've started doing since this past summer waitressing, and that is this: I don't volunteer the fact that I am Christian. If there is nothing in me to set me apart as different, I don't want to be any part of furthering the bad Christian title. However, I will tell you all you want to know if you ask.
Therefore, I told her straightforwardly that I agreed with her view that organized religion has achieved for itself a pretty priggish name for good reason but that I myself had found Jesus himself in a pretty profound way.
Next came some questions as to a few specifics in my theology (particularly homosexuality, sex before marriage, and "how far is too far?"), and she was a little surprised (in a good way) by my answers' balance of theology and reason.
She asked about my depression and counselling, and I briefly shared about my last semester's horrors but necessities and reciprocated the question as to whether she herself had ever experienced a wretched time that she would keep in her history anyway, if given the chance to remove it.
I was given the great honor of hearing her story, known only to half a handful of people.
Digging deeper, I asked after what it is that gives her the most satisfaction and joy in her life.
Horses. They're quiet and they listen.
The way I see it (and told her so as well), the reason we all love dogs and horses so very well is that no matter how many old ladies I kicked in a day, no matter how many homeless people I passed up on the street, no matter how many times I broke my diet, ignored texts from well-meaning friends, or cursed at wait staff, that little ball of fur is going to come running to the door for snuggles and love, treating me like I'm the greatest thing on two legs.
And if there were a person like that, well, then there just might be grounds for reevaluating everything.
That, in a nutshell, is why I love Jesus.
He loves out the very best parts of me regardless of what I've done.
Love like that changes a person.
I am a new creation every day because of the wild love I receive and could not ever be good enough to deserve.
He makes me a better woman, gives me the equipment to love, in part, others in the same way: seeing all and holding onto and speaking truth into the very best pieces.
My coursemate didn't open up her life to Jesus right then and there, and she may never. But she didn't shut down the conversation either and has asked that we do it again.
Maybe nothing will come of it, but I am humbled to have been able to even have that one talk.
My phone is dead. Really dead. And a lot of dead memories that I'd been holding onto in its archives are now gone forever, along with a few pages of writing notes I'd really like not to have lost, but I've no room to be bitter or even upset.
Scrubbed-down slate for brand new memories, one of which went down in Starbucks over broken Apple products and cookies.
God is good.
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