Happy to be with you Moments

"Happy to be with you" Moments... so often we get bogged down in the brokenness of the day that we lose sight of what the Lord has done in our lives. A friend of mine recently told me to get a book called "The Five Minute Jesus Journal" that helps you really embrace "Whole-Brain Gratitude" by focusing on joy moments with Jesus. 

As I was doing my joy moment today, the moment that came to my mind was a time when Steven and I were just friends. We sat at the Cafe Brazil in Carrollton, Texas drinking our bottomless coffee at 11 o'clock at night. We sat, we laughed, we told stories and we drank enough caffeine to kill a horse. The cafe was quiet that late at night but we laughed hardily as if no one else's opinion mattered. When I think back on this moment my heart is overjoyed. I smile remembering the smooth cups and the pumping of coffee. I was not smitten by this man at all, but this is where our true friendship blossomed. There were no pretenses. I didn't have to be someone I wasn't. I could be fully and completely my extra self and Steven just laughed, smiled and egged it on. 

When I look back to that day at the Cafe Brazil, I see Jesus smiling over the cups of coffee because he knew that we would need that deep abiding friendship to get us through a lot of the hard things. He knew that we would need to know how to laugh with each other and how to be real. He knew that I needed to make a fool of myself (he watched me hop my manual transmission truck out of the parking lot because I drank so much caffeine that my leg was shaking and I couldn't slowly ease off the clutch) and know that Steven was always a safe place for me to land. 

That moment brings me joy because I know that Steven was happy to be with me and I with him.