Let love seep in (like the warmth that radiates from your coffee cup into your whole body)

I recently rediscovered this piece I wrote a while back, after living in Spain for about a month. It still very much speaks to where I am at right now. I hope you enjoy!

***

One of my favorite things about Spanish life (perhaps coming close behind the daily siesta, which is awesome) is the café culture. You can order a café con leche (way better than Starbucks, trust me), and linger for hours without fear of being bothered every five minutes (they don’t tip here), or being pressured to buy something else, or having to make room for the next party (the café next door is probably better anyway).

Maybe the Spanish air is getting to me, but crazy as this sounds, I’d really like to get a café con leche with Jesus sometime. I’d like to know what he thinks of my latest adventures, like the weekend I spent practically dancing my way through the narrow cobblestone streets of Córdoba. (On the other hand, I’m far less curious to know how he felt when I spent an entire afternoon alternating between napping and Facebook).

I imagine he would sit across from me, with a gentle, laughing smile. I would tell him about my new friends and the way the birds swarm in the trees near my room at night. He would chuckle upon hearing me describe my language slip-ups, and he would appear saddened – tears of empathy in his eyes – to hear of my pangs of longing for friends and family who are far away.

He’d probably let me blabber on incessantly, nodding his head encouragingly, only occasionally breaking my monologue to say something like, “go on,” or “then what?” or “how did you feel about that?”

And then finally it would come time to go home, because after three hours of this, you really do need a siesta, and I would turn to him and say, “thanks for the coffee,” because of course he treated, and I would be just about to push open the door when I would realize that I had never asked him, at least not with any intentionality, how he was doing.

So I would walk to the bar (because of course he had to ask the bartender about his family), glancing at my watch on the way over (because 5 minutes of lost siesta time is precious), and he would smile at me and introduce me to the bartender, and brag about the man’s kindness toward every one of his costumers.

Then he would let the bartender attend to a new customer, and look at me intently, as if to say, “Well? You have my attention. Now what do you want?”

And I would feel rather silly, not knowing what it was I wanted to say, and it would be quiet for a moment, and then for a minute, and then for two. Him gazing at me with eyes full of kindness, me feeling less and less inclined to say anything at all that would break this sweet silence.

Then suddenly, disarmingly, he would speak into the silence, and his words would hang in the air and send life shooting through my veins, like a plant that has long been without water.

And I cannot tell you what he would say (because that’s just between him and me), but I will tell you this much.

He really loves me.

***

This is my prayer lately:

“May your unfailing love rest upon us,

O Lord,

Even as we put our hope in you.”

– Psalm 33:23

I long to rest in his love: this radical, sacrificial love that never quits, never falls short, never fails.

I want to remain still long enough to let him in, to let his love seep into the soil around me and be soaked up by my roots, bringing life to that which was dead in me.

In a despairing world that is so quick to choose the route of self-sufficiency, I choose the path of trust.

May we linger, soaking in the moments of solitude we are given, allowing Love to usher in the optimism and courage we need for today.