Courage and Cheese Fries

You know how you read books (or watch movies) and all the people have these perfect little chunks of time carved out of their days when they get to hide away with friends and drink coffee and chat?

I think of that when I do the dirty-dish sweep of the house so I can run the dishwasher. I bring the cereal bowl out from the bedroom and the coffee cups out of the bathroom (can you tell my morning routine is multi-tasked?) and I think - yeah this is real life. Forget the pretty little moments with friends. I have to caffeinate on the fly.

But Wednesday night I had one of those chunks of time that feels like it crawled out of a book. And I loved it.

My freshman year of college, I took a Creative Writing class. It was sort of an overview of other, more in-depth writing classes I'd take later. In my class was a girl named Crystal. She was a senior that year (I think) and was married already. We shared a book and formed a friendship. After she left, we wrote letters (because people still did that then) and eventually moved to emailing regularly.

She and her husband moved overseas to serve on the mission field and Crystal shared with me that she missed being part of a ladies Bible study. Since I taught the one at our church, I started emailing her my notes every week so she could be part of our study. And for several years, she was the Czech Republic extension of our group.

A couple of years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer and I followed her blog as she went through treatment, surgery, hair loss, illness...and did all of it overseas with tremendous courage.

She and her family are home right now, raising support to go back, and she'd sent a message saying they would be speaking at a church right by my house. So even though I had dinner plans and could only go late to see her...I sneaked in for the end of her husband's talk and then gave her a big hug. I thought that was the extent of our time, but her husband said to me, "Are you guys going to go out for tea or something? She'd like that."

Really? I could steal her away for a bit?

So after the last person left, we scurried out to my car and went to Steak & Shake for tea (hot for her, iced for me) and a shared plate of cheese fries. We were tucked away in our booth and caught up on our last five years. My desert and heartache - and now joy in a new life. Her battle with cancer and how God met her in amazing ways during her fight.

I took her back to her temporary home and as we sat in the car outside the house, she shared in a quiet voice more of those friend things...the quiet secrets that one heart trusts to another...and I knew I was having one of those movie moments.

The stolen away moments.

The sitting to enjoy the raw courage of a friend as told over a plate of cheese fries.