When Rachel Met Denise

You need to understand that this our story is funny to the both of us.  I lived in the Central Valley of California for 25 years where you shoot people over race or you laugh and have a good time over race.  I’m with the laughers.  We all laugh about it.  The blinding white people are laughing with their caramel opposites.  Our differences are funny to us not good or bad…just straight funny. 

Denise….you know I would never be your friend if we didn’t have Jesus to make us exactly the same.  You would have never grilled hamburgers with me if Jesus hadn’t brought us both from the opposite sides of the road to land in the same church with the same Savior.

I grew up completely homeschooled…back then that meant long hair, long skirts, long vocabulary words, and long books that you actually wanted to read.  That’s why Denise lovingly calls me “homeschooled.”  And I’m just so…you know…white girl…whatever that might mean to you.  What that means to Denise is that in the first few years of being friends with her I tried to break out of my whiteness and maybe throw down some street talk…it never really worked out though.

Like that one time she made Spanish rice and her husband was bringing it over to the table and I said REALLY loudly…

“I gotta get me some of that!”

…Denise and my husband (who also speaks fluent street talk) just stared at me in shock and then started laughing.

What?! What did I say?  Denise said I really should just stick with my white homeschool girl talk.  I was just trying to be cool like them.  Excuse me. 

We would never be buddies if it weren’t for Jesus.   But here we are.  She finds my whiteness entertaining and I find her streetness educational.  That’s how amazing our God is.  He takes opposite people and fills them with love for people that we would think were weird in a life without Christ.  You guys really need to step into this life with Jesus.  Cool stuff happens.

Denise, I still haven’t convinced you how cool I am but for some reason you still like to hang out.  You don’t seem to mind that the only time I’ve been high is when I was overlooking the Yosemite Valley.  You still let me make high jokes even though I don’t know what I’m talking about.  God has brought us together because he is one of the laughers too. 

Now give me a hug…come on…bring it in.