The part of me that is vibrating with excitement about our move and this new chapter of life is most certainly eclipsed these days by the part of me that is heavy with mourning. I really do miss this hill country town already. I look harder and longer at the streets and faces and houses every day, trying to cement in my mind the images of this place I was, at first, hesitant to embrace and that I now know can never be replaced.
More than the gentle slopes of the landscape, more than the river and the queso and the music and the history . . . more than any of that, I will miss my community of friends the most.
And so what follows is a love letter to the hot mamas who have come along side me to inspire, nurture, encourage, and love me in the too-short time we were planted here:
Dear friends of the Community Prayer Coffee,
How could I ever begin to put words to what you mean to me? There is no doubt in my mind that when we weren't able to buy that little house with the white picket fence in that town down the road, it was because God had already laid the foundation for a house of love and laughter for me right here.
That first Girls' Night Out when two of you stepped forward with an invitation to join you, I was cautious. I had already invested so much energy into guarding myself. We never really intended to be here for more than a season or two, and many years of uprooting and relocating had built up gnarled scar tissue in my heart. Careful though I was, your warmth was irresistible.
The four of us gathered around the table at Melissa's house, and I discovered an openness, a distinctive authenticity among you three that I had never experienced before. I wasn't ready to let my guard down yet, but I did begin to think that maybe someday, I could.
Not too terribly long after that, Dacey was born and ya'll showed up to minister to me with abounding love and support. Delivered meals and deliberate phone calls and taking time to look me in the eye and ask how I was really doing. My heart is so full when I think back on those days.
When the new baby/new mama fog finally lifted two months later and I returned to our prayer coffee group, I was delighted and amazed by the growth. No longer would we fit around one table at anyone's house, and God provided a pool table and an unshakable hostess who never flinched in the face of opening up her home to the masses (and grubby fingers and contagious grins of all of our children).
It was there, in our own little upper room, that God unfolded for me a beauty that is unequal to any I've ever beheld. It was there I learned what it is to be TrueFaced for it was there, in that room of grace, I knew I could finally take off my mask. I learned from you what it is to be bold, to be risky, to not settle for the surface, to engage in the deep. In the gatherings in that room, the hardest of secrets could be spoken out loud and whispers of dreams were finally given a voice.
In the spring and summer of two years ago, when the end of my parents' marriage brought me to my knees in despair, when I walked through the darkest valley of grief and loss, your tearful prayers over me were a balm to my seared and broken soul. And when you showered our family before AJ's arrival, my spirit soared in the glow of such generosity.
You've taught me about showing up and following through, about taking it in and working it out, about boundless grace and unyielding mercy and immeasurable love. Even now, in the midst of boxes that signal another uprooting, I wonder over the unstoppable munificence of this community who would step up to serve me even as I am in the process of being pried away.
But because of you, my sweetest friends, that old scar tissue has long since been cut away. In its place there is a tenderness, a vulnerability, a willingness that I surely never would have known were it not for your work in my life. This leaving is wretchedly painful, but I know you send me forth with prayers of healing and renewal.
Thank you for being the gift that you are to me, to this community, and to the Body.
