Giants drinking coffee

A guest blog by Kim Thames

​ ​I am a member of the Across the Bridge class at Campus Church because this is where the giants of faith come to drink Willie Mae’s coffee every Sunday morning.  And after a few minutes together we are almost as strong.  We are strong enough to face another week of whatever brutality and beauty the world will be throwing our way.  Although it is labeled as a class for folks in recovery, they graciously allow us other people to attend pretending we are there to support them.  It does not take long to learn it is quite the other way around, and to learn we have a lot of recovering to do ourselves.  We find ourselves making fearless moral inventories. Discovering the relief of vulnerability. We are lifted on their shoulders to renew the joy of our salvation.    
One of these giants shakes her head and closes her eyes when she speaks of her life before recovery.  She and her husband twelve-stepped their way off the streets and into sobriety together, and she gives all the glory to God.  Lots and lots and lots of glory to God all the time, all the time. She never misses an opportunity to make sure you know that God gets all the credit for lifting her up and lifting you up and lifting us all up, all the time.  He did it all, does it all, and he is still doing it.   Then cancer came for her husband.  I saw her last Sunday as I have every single Sunday since she lost him.  I said to her, “You are awesome.”
OH, NO, she said, and she pauses for a wide grin, then says again, “OH, NO, God is awesome.” 
She pauses again to look at me intently. “I cannot love.  It is only Jesus in me that can love.”  Then she slips into bible class.
And I stand there for a moment because I know I am on holy ground.