“Life is short. Fix it yourself.”
That’s the sentiment on the front of my most comfortable T-shirt. I love that shirt. It’s well-made, fits just right, goes perfectly with jeans—all the important T-shirt qualities.
But those words . . .
I sort of want to amend that saying. I can’t fix life myself. I can fix things, but life is too big for me. I know for sure I can’t fix it myself. I can help, though. Years ago our pastor used the analogy of being out on the water during a bad storm. Yes, pray for help, but also row. That’s me. I’m a “pray to God and row for the shore” person. Plus, I was raised to chip in when someone else is working and I don’t have time to get myself grounded. So, I pray to God and row for the shore.
A few weeks ago, “Lee,” the universally-loved matriarch of a large local family passed away. Lee and “Dot,” the mother of one of my good friends, enjoyed a decades-long friendship, and my friend and I were talking about the origins and longevity of that friendship.
For six young farm wives—each of them an only child—monthly home extension meetings led to a spinoff friendship, Coffee Club, that has carried them through parenthood and widowhood, births and deaths, graduations and weddings, successes and failures. These sisterless women found each other, formed a sisterhood, and traveled through life together. In their way, they fixed it themselves, but surely there was a force behind their fixing, a created opportunity for these women to meet.
Their story of friendship and found-sisterhood gives me the warm-and-fuzzies. Seriously. I had tears. Part of it, I’m sure, is the fact that all six women were only children. Part of it is the longevity of the friendship; the living members of the Coffee Club remain closest of friends. The “coffee cousins,” as the children of the six women were called, have followed the path of true cousins. They’ve become separated by miles and life and years, but reconnect gladly and easily when shared events and gatherings. A thread begun at a monthly meeting wove a multi-generational web of friendship, support, and love.
The Coffee Club brought together a group of young women navigating similar territory in their lives. Their shared experiences allowed them to guide one another as they traversed the decades. Knowing these women, I imagine they prayed to God, but they also rowed for the shore in search of found sisters. Their lives converged as they “fixed it themselves,” and so many in our small community were impacted in some way by the sacred sisterhood of Coffee Club.
Theirs is a lovely story of finding and holding one’s people. For them, it happened over coffee. For others, it happens in an auditorium or on the back of a horse, at a quilting retreat or a national conference, in a church basement or a team huddle, around a card table or in sunroom, at a community walk or Tuesday night meeting. We may find them by chance or by intent, but we find them. They find us. God crosses our paths.
However it happens, we must find our people.
Pray and row, pray and row.
Woods Writes 
As a daughter of one of the coffee club ladies, and one of the coffee cousins, this short article by Tonya,means a great deal to me, as I know it will to all of my “cousins”. During the summers, we all got together about every couple of weeks (is that right guys?) to have supper together! Mom’s would all sit around the kitchen table and visit all evening, Dad’s would sit in the living room and talk or watch TV until they all fell asleep! But the kids, oh did we have a grand time. For the most part, we were left alone to get into whatever we could find. We played games, most we made up; I don’t know how we all made it through. Only accident worth reporting was Denny C.
He fell off the roof of an outhouse at our house. Broke his arm.
We were all best of friends and still are. And all because 6 wonderful women found each other and never let go!
LikeLike