A Special Blessing at Starbucks

I've got ideas bouncing around in my mind but I'll try and keep them rather linear and only a couple to a post.

Tonight I went to a Starbucks. I bought a...vanilla something machiato (or toxin-laced sugar-flavored caffeine, as I think of it. Note that this didn't stop me from buying one). I was dissapointed to see that the comfy chair near the bay window was taken, and as I had no interest in impeding on the space of the guy sitting at the window (he'd also taken over the lamp table beside the other chair and the table in front of him, obviously stating with his books that he had a wide bubble right now) I moved to the comfy red chair near the back. Sadly, it was near the bathroom and the escape door. I felt a little like I'd been put in a corner but I wasn't going to sit on one of those hard chairs, if I wanted a hard chair I would have gone to Heine Bros, and it didn't smell.

So, I sit there thinking that I could have my quiet time, but deciding against that because I didn't want to think too hard and quiet times are hard thinking things. You never crack open the Bible for a foray into mindlessness. So, I'm sitting there sucking down my drink, grateful that I can't taste the coffee, wondering if there actually *is* any coffee in this, or just sugar, munching on a cupcake that's not nearly as tasty as it looked, contemplating the sensation of unshaven legs and I overhear a conversation.

Now, all this time I'm trying to get my mind on Dresden Files. Yes, I bought pulp fiction on super sale at Borders. But, despite the entertainment of a magician driving a vw bug I couldn't help but listen. Now, I'd seen this couple as I walked by to my little corner near the bathrooms. They looked like they were studying but I didn't catch the books. I wondered if they were studying the Bible. In this town, if you see someone at a coffee shop studying there's a decent chance they're studying the Bible, but I blew it off because it wasn't a coffee shop near any significant Bible school, Seminary, or church. I was wrong.

So, I'm sitting there and the caffiene hits me and I can feel the blood rushing through my veins. I figure the two are a couple, or studying for school. My skin feels like it's shifting wrong over my soul. This isn't a particularly foreign feeling to me. It's like wearing a jacket that's too tight, or jeans that you've worn every day for a week and are staring to feel a bit grungy. It's that feeling of trying to flex your legs in a cramped space and only being able to shift around a bit. It's the feeling of being in a room filled with bodies and smells and you just wish you could step out into the cold night air and take a deep deep breath. It's all those feelings but it's deep deep down inside, beyond my heart, but in every corner of my mind, deep in my gut but not touching a single organ. There but not, beyond, encompassing. It occurs to me that this is an odd place to feel this way. I thank God that I will die some day and I listen to this conversation that those two are having.

After a short time it becomes apparent that the gentleman (not even my age, probably) is sharing the gospel with the woman. They're studying the Bible. She's asking distracting questions like "so, are you a Baptist?" and "Do you think drinking is a sin then?" and he's rebuffing it all gently and turning it back to Scripture. My heart (wait, when did I switch to present tense?) sores.
I wasn't thinking about anything else anymore, I was eavesdropping on this amazing and unexpected conversation. At first I worried that the Gospel wasn't being being presented properly, or not at all, but those fears were quickly disproven (<-hey, is that a word?) and I felt this deep joy welling up in me. I prayed that she would hear the Word beyond her obvious interest in the gentleman. I prayed that he would speak true, and I listened with a happy heart to the Truth.

I also drew them. I think the girl noticed. It was all I could do to hold back. I wanted to hug the guy for blessing my evening so. I wanted to interrupt to tell him he was brave and gallant and wonderful and I knew that doing that would botch the whole thing and seem a bit odd especially since he was obviously doing fine on his own. So, instead I listened in and rejoiced that the Word was being shared and then I left.

I wonder, that stirring inside me, would I have ever listened into that conversation if it hadn't distracted me from my book? Would I have ever been blessed if something hadn't turned my thoughts Heavenward first? And why that coffee shop? Why that hour? I think God brought me there to pray for those two while the Gospel was being shared, and to bless me with hearing the Joyous News. How serendipitous, how ironic, how wondrous. Where two or more, it says. How interesting then that two were brought together in one Spirit, though we didn't even know each other.