I sat down with several friends at a long table for breakfast, at the conference center where we were teaching for a week. An employee was walking around the noisy, busy dining hall with a stack of styrofoam cups and a coffeepot, pouring fresh cups for some and replenishing the mugs of others. This lead to a conversation among us about who did and didn’t drink coffee. A couple of friends agreed with me when I said, “I just don’t like coffee. I never learned to drink it.”
The young woman across from me got a little misty-eyed and began a story of explanation.
“Here’s what you need to do,” she said, caressing her cup of steaming coffee. “You need to get stuck in a cabin in a snowstorm with the man you love. And there’s nothing to eat in the cabin. There’s only coffee.” Her voice grew more and more wistful as she went on. Her face softened and her eyes glowed.
“He builds a fire and finds a blanket to wrap around you. He makes hot coffee and brings it to you. You drink it. Because the man you love made it for you, to help you stay warm.” She sighed. “That’s how I learned to like coffee.”
We all melted, too.
“Wow,” we said.
“What a great story,” we exclaimed.
“We’d drink coffee, too,” we agreed.
“Yes,” she said, rousing herself a little from her memories. “You know,” she continued, creasing her forehead a little, “I’ve never told my husband about that.”
Incredibly, she was rather startled as the giggles and howls shot to the ends of the table, and we held onto the edges of our chairs, to keep ourselves from falling right off onto the dining room floor.
A joyful heart is good medicine
Proverbs 17:22 (HCSB)
Really, I’d rather laugh than not. Wouldn’t you?