Friday, November 8, 2013

Five-Minute Friday: Truth

Five-Minute Friday is when we link up with Lisa-Jo Baker and hundreds of others, to write on the same prompt for five minutes. No backspacing. No editing.  I followed neither of those rules today!  I am not a complete rule breaker, though!  I did follow the absolute-must-follow rule and left an encouragement for the writer who posted ahead of me! 


Photo Credit
They sit across from one another at a table in Starbucks sipping their Pumpkin Spice lattes. 

It's been a while and they talk about what they have been up to and how busy life is and how crazy- fast time flies.  They have daughters and marvel at what young ladies those girls are becoming.  They reflect on how they are mothering differently than their own mothers did. 

Life is good sitting across the table from a friend at Starbucks.

They smile.  They talk about Jesus.  They wear cute jeans, scarves and knee-high boots. 

Time is up much too quickly and they hug and agree to do it again soon.  They part ways, smiling about the lovely time they had.

And although this scene is played out in cafes everywhere -

that picture is not always the whole truth. 

In fact, it rarely is.  There's usually more.


We look at those two women and it looks like they have it all together.  The friendship and the smiles and the cute clothes.  But the truth is that we all have some sort of messy going on in our lives.  We all have difficult seasons and marriage is hard and parenting is even harder and people disappoint us.  And then there's loneliness and depression and sickness.  Things that people just don't talk about at Starbucks.  And we look at them and we look at ourselves and we realize, we are the Starbucks ladies.  And thank You, Jesus, for Pumpkin Spice lattes and friends and scarves, but in-between smiles and sips of coffee, let's not forget to share the messy too.  Because we need to give each other permission to not have it all figured out.

I wish I had asked that day.  I wish I would have known to reach across the table to take her hand and pray with her.  But I was too busy having it all together.

8 comments:

  1. It's true that it's not the whole truth... but I think the most open times I've had with friends is over a cup of coffee at the coffee shop (Dunkins, in my case). It just takes a little courage, and sometimes takes finding that quiet corner in the back so you can talk freely without the world hearing. :)

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    1. Yes! Talking over a cup of coffee in a quiet corner have been great times of opening up for me as well! We are blessed to have wonderful friends to share those times with! I wish that on this particular day I had not been so caught up in the catching up that I missed an opportunity to really listen and hear the need. Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting!

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  2. I really appreciate the line that says "we need to give each other permission to not have it all figured out." I think we have friends that fit in this line, and others who don;t, but should. Thanks for the reminder and thanks for sharing on FMF today.

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  3. Oh I love this! Having intimate chats with my girlfriend at a coffee shop, where we bore our hearts, unafraid of what the other would think, inspired my book, "Coffee Talk With Jesus - Intimate Chats With the Savior". Loved your post!

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    1. Thank you, Barbie! "Coffee Talk With Jesus" sounds like something I would love to read!

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  4. You always speak truth and BLESS me!!!

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