Five Minute Friday: If You Met Me

If you met me…

I’d talk too much and worry that you didn’t like me.  I’d have coffee in my hand, drinking it out of my favorite DaySpring mug, and toddler snot smeared across my shoulder, most likely.  You’d see my tattoo and ask me about it, wonder what it means, and why I had the audacity to brand myself with the word ‘write’ across my wrist.  I’d give you a half-hearted explanation and tell you it was supposed to say something else, in Latin, but as usual, I let the opinions of others weigh more than my own.  I’d tell you about the books I’m reading and the uncomfortable and yet exciting places on the journey God is taking me, lately.

I'd toss you an apron and you’d see last night’s dinner crumbs on my floor and the piles of unread and half-read and re-read books sliding haphazard on my makeshift dining room desk.  You’d see a stack of tissue-papered canvasses waiting to be worked on, waiting for time to finish the art class I’m taking in between the school bus’s departure and arrival. 

I’d tell you to “walk with me, talk with me”, while I putzed around and made phone calls and sent emails on behalf of the ten busy kid bodies in this house, while three of them climbed on me and interrupted our conversation and needed help pronouncing words in their homeschool reading books.  You’d walk while I checked chores and scribbled reminders in my notebook, my brain that sits on the dining room table.

And you’d probably think I’m a scatterbrain – I am.  You may notice my hair, badly in need of a coloring or a style at all, thrown into a crumpled ponytail this morning and my house, in various stages of decorated and not yet decorated, and the ugly furniture I try hard to hide with throw pillows and cleverly draped blankets.

You may wonder what kind of Southern Baptist I am, anyway, what with my Oregon-home photos and postcards wistful on the walls and my somewhat liberal viewpoints and tattoo and tank tops, since the name of my home, my place of ministry, echoes that denomination, and I’d maybe confess that I can’t call myself that, quite yet, because I’m not entirely sure, even after 7 months of being here, what it means to be either Southern or Baptist, but I love the Lord and that should count for something, even if the whole concept of denominational Christianity is a little weird for me, still.

And I’d refill your coffee and mine and you’d walk with me, talk with me some more, and I’d write your name in my list of gratitudes and smile because you, certainly, would have made my day.