When I sit alone at restaurants, I let myself see the entire room. I'm curious and easily distracted and good at doing both.
If people-watching were a sport, I'd have a lot of trophies.
I've learned that when I sit with others, I need to have my back to the world so they can have my full attention. If we go to a restaurant that has TVs, you can kiss the conversation goodbye.
I watched as a silver Tesla parked three spaces from the front door. A man with a topknot got out first and then his wife and then their young son. The man and woman looked like they needed coffee and a nap. I wanted to tell them they were doing great, but if someone looks like they need coffee and a nap, then they don't need a conversation with a stranger.
On opposite sides of the restaurant sat pairs of men. Two at a table to my right. Two at a table to my left. One table was chatting about finances and business and stocks and blah blah blah. The other table was talking about the NBA playoffs. My ears perked up. If you start talking about NBA basketball near me, I am going to listen and, if appropriate, join your conversation.
The waiter brought my one single pancake with a smile and asked if I needed anything else. I didn't. I had all I needed.
The restaurant began to fill up and so did I. Pancakes can find every empty space of your body and fill it full. When you eat a pancake, you feel joy, but soon that joy turns into drowsiness. No one has ever eaten a pancake and thought, Now I have energy for the rest of the day.
I continued reading my book, but I kept flipping back to those seventeen words: "Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that He will show you the next step."
Lately I've been thinking about trust. Life doesn't look the way I thought it would, and this has slowly sent me spiraling. Yet the invitation to trust Jesus remains. It always remains.
Trusting is tiring work.
It's as exhausting as it is beautiful. Yet, every day I find myself opening my hands and saying to God, "I trust You." Most days I even mean it.
Henri Nouwen was right: Jesus is present with us, and He will show us the next step.
Sometimes I have to sit in the corner and turn my back to the world to remember this is true. Sometimes I have to turn around and look back on my life and see how Jesus has been present with me, showing me the next step. Sometimes I have to go to a diner and order a pancake and sit in silence to let those seventeen words from page eighteen roll around in my head.
Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that He will show you the next step.
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A Recipe to Cure Another Defeating Day
Serves 1
1 /2 bag of jalapeño chips
Psalm 23
73 dog videos
A prayer
41 minutes of walking outside beneath the sun
A list of 25 things that bring you joy
10 hours in sweatpants
Another prayer
At least 2 pages of journaling
A mountain of blankets
3 hours of petting a dog
As many phone calls with old friends as desired
2 mixtapes from high school so you can sing at the top of your lungs as you drive with the windows down
A meaningful hug
Season 4, episode 13, of The Office
Something fried and dipped in sauce
Another prayer
Mix ingredients together in any order. The phone calls are optional, but the prayers are not. Remember today is today, and tomorrow is on its way.
- Mark 4:39 KJV
- Matthew 5:7 NIV
- Matthew 19:14 NIV
- Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom (Image, 1999), 18.
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