Fill My Cup.

We sat with our mutual mugs -- hers a blue Starbucks mug with North Carolina imprints, girdy in size but beautiful in composition, and mine a hand-painted happy chirp mug, scribed and textured by her artistry.  Our coffee was fresh, hers brewed in an elegant French press, and mine blended in the counter Keurig.

I was freshly sweating, still in workout polyester with-slick backed hair and she was newly woken, Nuggets sweatshirt and cutie shorts still under covers.

And she filled my cup.

I laughed with joy, seeing her face, trying to reach through the Skype screen and hug her in gloriousness.  We talked like school girls, breaking through each other's sentences, with happiness and understanding and use of words that only we can understand.  She referred to a friend as Jo, referencing the name as "like Jo from Little Women," which only girls like us get.  And guided a tour of her apartment, with framed cards and glass bottles and wooden signs and antiqued furniture, was like walking through my home.  Both of us caring about details, about color, about shape, about flow.

And my heart settled.  Her conversation filled my cup.

I love this friendship, this coffee filling, heart filling, life-giving sisterhood between Kate and I.  We palpitate for hours about Kenya, the red dirt sands and long-legged giraffes and Agape boys we've both gotten to love.  Our voices will carry about school and teaching and nannying, motherhood and men and money, between breaths of good books we're reading, Bible passages we're studying, and vacations we're amid dreaming.  Its an endless weave of conversation, flowing in and out like rabbit trails, both of us hoping along at grand paces but always connecting, gliding, needing.

Our words fill my cup.  Our mutual passions fill my cup.  Our shared emotion fills my cup.

Its beautiful to sit, to Skype, across from a friend who is so comfortable that pajamas or sweats or tears or laughter will do.  All I had to do was bring myself, and my coffee cup.

And she filled my cup.

~~~
Thanks, Kate Riedberger, for your special time and heart.  God blesses me through having you in my life.