Last week I ate at one of my top ten favorite restaurants. It’s great—delicious, of course. But I love it more because of the memories than because of the lick-the-bowl-worthy yellow cheese dip.
Seven years ago I reached for chips one after the other, excitedly cramming them in my mouth, as Justin and I brainstormed what it might look like to leave everything and move to New York City, to plant a church different from any church we’d ever known.
Eight years ago I sat at a small table at the front of the restaurant and talked through what would need to happen for Justin and I to have a baby, mostly how we would come up with the money. With no solution in sight, I cried. He cried, tear lines fresh on his cheeks as the waiter refilled our diet cokes.
Nine years ago Justin and I sat at a different table talking through his book project. We celebrated his getting an agent with sopapillas and honey. Months and a stack of rejection letters later, we drowned our sorrows in cheese dip.
I look back on Friday night dinners at Rosie’s with my husband and I feel like Jacob who opened his eyes and said “Surely the Lord was in this place and I was not aware.”
Rosie’s in Huntsville, Alabama is a sacred place. I walk in the door, and I am overwhelmed by the presence of God. I roll chicken and onions into a flour tortilla and the act is almost liturgy. I taste it and I taste provision and love and joy and peace.
It’s a lot like taking communion, so swept up am I in remembrance.