A Unique Connection

Life is about connections. I thought of this as I was sitting on my family room floor, savoring the memory of a special moment at the coffee shop. On this Saturday morning, as usual, I woke up, showered, gathered my books and headed to the local meeting spot for a little peace and quiet. I ordered my vanilla latte and was prepared to settle into a morning of reading. The atmosphere was buzzing with the after-holiday noise of friends getting together.

I was deep into my reading and was just making a transition when there was a glow that surrounded my table. My new friend breezed to my table with her kilowatt smile and sunshine hair. I was so surprised and delighted to see her, I jumped up and we hugged as if we were lifetime soul sisters and not two women, different races, opposite life circumstances, who had just met earlier in the month. There was such joy to see her again and she to see me. We were connected in a unique way that will be a delight to discover and explore.

She is a connector, a joiner and she immediately introduced me to a young man who was sitting at a table across from me. I noticed him earlier because I had to change my coffee cup and so briefly stepped in front of him at the counter. As a life observer, I also glanced at his table and saw his Bible, it made me smile. This coffee shop draws a lot of people, it seems, who come here to meditate and study.

My twinkle-eyed friend, in her signature exuberance, said we had to meet. She gave quick introductions, and also in the same moment, introduced me to her friend she came to chat with. She whirled away with the promise to come back. The gentleman and I started a chat and then with permission, I sat down for a deeper discussion. It was an orchestrated moment by God.

It turned out the gentleman was a pastor, a discovery I learned an hour into our discussion. There were Socratic moments in the discussion and a lively dialogue of the meaning of the church, the messages of Jesus and Paul, the future, almost everything under the sun. It was a moment that left an indelible impression on my spirit. I noticed my eyes glancing at the door in hopes that my husband would join me for this unusual moment.

As our talk turned to our mutual heritage, Creole from New Orleans, we sensed a moment that only God could plan. We commented that this was something neither of us would do at this coffee shop and how funny it was how my friend introduced us. He only knew her face briefly, their paths crossed professionally. Our joint observation of her was on the heels of a talk about gifts and talents. I asked him about the church and we proceeded to exchange information with a promise to have his wife email me and my husband call him. I was writing when again, I felt a ray of sunshine to my right, it was my friend

She has such a natural way of instinctively knowing the right people to connect. The three of us launched into another conversation as if we were old friends from college. An energy from the coffee shop radiated around us, our talk was electric and lit up that little table. Eventually I mentioned the time and we turned to see people standing up, it was the last Saturday of the year. We gathered our things and said the hurried good-byes of comrades.

I walked away full, delighted, it was one of those mornings that I wanted to bottle up. I was so excited that I called my husband. He could hear the joy in my voice as I tried to describe the feeling. I realized, you had to be there.