I Dropped Jesus on the Floor: Someday Adventures in Texas

Twenty three years ago I watched a young woman stand and agree before God and everyone else that she would love and cherish a young man as his wife. I knew her mother, a fellow home-schooler I’d met through a mothers’ online group; she in the Colorado mountains and me in the rolling hills of Kentucky. Each year our home school organization would convene for several days in Tennessee and that’s where our “mom friendship”went to looking one another in the eye and grew to include our families. Kids met kids and we continued contact over the months, back when email was a marvel and made Colorado and Kentucky meet in the middle. Then came the wedding invitation in the mail, the motor home was loaded up and the miles between us shrunk one mile marker at a time.

As weddings go, family and friends mingled, the songs were sung, the vows were said and everyone found themselves back at the ranch, literally, to watch the sun set on the mountain straight out the kitchen window and eat dinner, kids played like they’d known each other from their first birthdays, and all was right with the world. As the years do, life shifts and water rises under the bridge and threatens to weaken the ties that bind, not for any reason save “busy” is right in front of your eyes and each other is somewhere else and all the things shout loud for your attention and you settle in to “let’s get together again someday.” Meanwhile, all the life descriptors landed, some with light bursts of joy, others with a hard fall that left a forever mark. Death, divorce, adoption, marriages, moves; it happened fast, one day at a time.

Then came social media and staying current became much easier. Kids grow up and families are created and the ground becomes more level as the things in common accumulate. My friends’ daughter became simply…..my friend. Over the years there were messages exchanged, pictures displayed and I watched her as her story unfolded. They moved from out of country to Texas country and “you should come see us!” was always met with…..”Yes! I’d love that….someday!” And then you forget about it, as we do, and go on and a year would pass and one of us would talk about the “someday” again and I don’t know that I ever assumed that “someday” would actually be a thing but wouldn’t that be nice and it sure would and oh well…..

Korea 2025 arrived, my fourth trip to what has become my second home. While I was there I felt something tugging at me inwardly. It seemed like a persistent whisper. “Someday is NOW. Act on it. There is favor for you.” I recognized it as the Creator of my soul and He wanted to give me good gifts. Before I left Korea to come home, I’d received a voucher perk from the airline. My immediate question was “Where?”. “TEXAS,” came the immediate directive. So I messaged my friend, invited myself for July 4th weekend and bought my ticket. I spent the first four years of my life there and had always wanted to go back just to see it. I was going to Texas! The thing is, that young bride I’d seen walk down the aisle 23 years ago now had four children, one almost the age she was then.

I walked out of Love Field Airport and there she was…..and all of a sudden the flat screen version I’d been communicating with was 3D and almost larger than life. It felt disorienting to see her in person again. It felt completely like “just yesterday” within minutes. We blew right past weather chatter and went right for the deep end on the drive to her home. It was all the things that I crave…..real talk, no pretense and avocado toast for lunch. We walked through her front door and her kids tumbled down the steps and greeted me with hugs and welcomes. Their warmth towards me completely wrapped its’ arms around me and all of the family was calling me “Aunt Tam” by that evening. I was more than okay with that. To see my friend and her husband and what they had created together almost made my heart burst wide open.

The talks around the table, the dinner shared with some of their dear friends with all the kids making the food in the kitchen, the Stockyards complete with bulls and brisket, meeting all the backyard chickens, falling asleep on the couch during Maverick, Battleship with their son and church on Sunday…..all of it felt like what life used to be; easy….like Sunday morning, doing life as it is and falling in right alongside them. It was everything I crave, it was more than I expected. It was breathing in deep and exhaling satisfied.

Sunday dawned eagerly for me. I was looking forward to this church they talked about. They had been a part of the birth of it and I wanted to see the place that had created such fruit in their lives. My friends’ husband was making breakfast and one by one, as they shuffled into the kitchen, each got handed a plate with a fluffy pancake on it. It tasted like home and the peace in the kitchen was better than the maple syrup pool on my plate. We piled into two cars, the older girls wanting a chance to talk with me on their own as we made our way to church. We walked through the door, the cool air conditioning, hot coffee handed to me and the sunshine yellow smiles of those I was introduced to immediately drew me in. We made our way to our seats as the music began, my friend and her son standing off to one side swaying together to the cadence. “I’m taking a walk around to absorb it all,” I whispered to one of the daughters and slowly made my way through the other worshipers throughout the room. It was time to share communion and I made my way back to my seat. My friends handed me my cup and bread efficiently attached to one another and I stood in the aisle by my seat with others and unpeeled the “bread”……and it flew out of my hands and rolled onto the floor. I quickly glanced around, hoping no one saw me. One of my friends’ daughters looked at me, her eyes sparkling with a smothered laugh. “I dropped Jesus on the floor!” I whispered and I loved that God had a sense of humor.

It was a fast two days and the time to go drove up to the curb with the squeal of its tires. It’s hard to leave a story when you’ve only just gotten through the first few lines. The zipper on the suitcase sounds harsh, announcing the end of the weekend. Lunch tasted that kind of good when you know you won’t get to eat it again for awhile. You eat more than you can hold to try and make it last longer. The airport departure lanes were teeming with people and we did a fire drill goodbye, everyone out of the car with frantic hugs and thanks for everything and I love you and we’ll miss you and running through the door with a whoosh as it closes behind me. The solo trip home always, always feels quieter than the one going somewhere else. I stand in security with a notice on my phone that my plane is already boarding. A part of me hopes I miss it. But I don’t and I slink my way down the narrow aisle, take my seat in the plane and look out the window.

It took me 23 years to get here, I said, but it won’t take me long to get back. Because someday is now.