this morning started with a few minutes in my favorite place - the front porch of Common Grounds. Our new car doesn't have a parking pass, so I've been playing a competitive game of Where's Waldo with Baylor Parking Services. When I know those lovely, lovely people (...not...) are out with their ticket guns of death, I move my car. When moving it this morning, Common Grounds just sucked me inside. there was no saying no - bedhead, morning breath and all.
As I sat on the front porch, in my seat - in the old wobbly chairs that grow on you only with time - I couldn't help but think how many hours I've sat in that seat. she's heard the stories of countless Collins residents - residents that have become friends now. She's heard us laugh and cry; she's leaned in as we whispered and she too, felt the weight of some of the most difficult situations I've ever encountered. She's journeyed through growth; she's watched us as sometimes we've journeyed what feels like backwards just to take a few steps forward. I bet this table has more faith than me; she's seen God work in ways beyond what I have, because she just listens - reflecting, taking in - she becomes more beautiful with time. I wonder what we'd learn if we listened like her.
She's watched me study. She's groaned with me as all my papers lay spread across the table in a chaotic disaster. Or, maybe she laughed or perhaps she was even jealous she couldn't listen to the inner conflict in my heart and mind as I journeyed through seminary, and yet, this tension brought me closer to the Lord. She could tell by my conversations - by my faith.
Maybe she could tell those days when I came just to get out. Some days vitamin D and a distraction is the only boost of optimism we need. she gave me my space and watched as my bad mood slipped away.
She listened to Clayton and I make plans of how we were going to keep our house super clean with all these new "processes" and yet, she knew our house wouldn't be clean if we stayed on the porch all day. but, perhaps that was better anyway. she became an escape as our apartment seemed to get smaller and smaller with each day. somehow she made us want to dream. she listened as I discerned my call. she watched Clayton and I fall more in love as we delved deeper and deeper into knowing one another.
she directed friends my way - to crave a cup of coffee - just when I needed encouragement. so many friends come through those doors - just past my table.
an expensive cup of coffee paid my property taxes, and she became a home - a refuge.
The ocean reminds us that we are small. Very very small and that even this water reaches deeper and farther and even more beyond our words and understanding than we know. Yet we still sit on its sand like a guest - just checking in to remember that we're small, remembering that we need boats and ships and barges to know it - to experience just a piece of it. That we need oxygen masks and wetsuits to delve beyond its surface. 
