Meeting Ellen

Remember her, that effervescent mother of five sons that crossed my path once upon an ordinary day beside the pretzels at the local Target store?  With the freshness of spring she came, breezing in, in a “chance meeting” that carried with it the scent of the Divine.

Kindred spirits, I’ve learned, are rare.  This particular lesson was learned through pain; the pain that strikes a woman where she is most vulnerable – in her relationships. 

Pain, you see, instructs.  It strips life down to its bare essentials, burning away the dross and leaving only the truth, shining like fire.  Because kindred spirits are so rare, they are priceless.  Such is the lesson of the pain.

It was a chilly, gray day only last week that I met her, on purpose this time, at Starbucks.  For a little over two hours, we sat, she looking chic with her loose golden braids on a chunky purple turtleneck and I in my jeans and black heels.  Over and over as we chatted, I found myself nodding and thinking, “You, too?  Really?  You, too?”

We spoke of many things.  Of our backgrounds and beliefs.  Of our husbands.  Of our sons (between us, we have nine).  Of fashion and schedules.  Of aging and careers.  Of dreams and houses and hair.  All of the things that girls love to talk about, we covered that day with promises to do it again sometime soon. 

And that’s how our friendship began.  It was a “chance meeting,” some might say; a stroke of luck. 

Or not.  I’d like to think it was a divine appointment, a planned encounter, that God was smiling.  Because, you know, that’s just how He is.