Aunt Michelle's kitchen counter

When I was in high school, my "auntie"/youth leader would sit me down at her kitchen counter and teach me all things domestic. The first thing she would always ask was "How was your week?" which usually was followed by "Have you prayed about that?". I'm pretty sure I would then roll my eyes. (Sorry, Aunt Michelle! Love you, Aunt Michelle!) We would spend the next few hours talking about the issues at hand in both of our lives while sewing or cooking or taking care of babies or organizing a home.

It was her presence in the mundane that gave her authority to speak in the personal, and her willingness to be open that invited me to share as well.

 

Fast forward a few years and a fifteen year old is sitting at the kitchen counter scrolling through pictures on her handheld while another girl and I mix together cinnamon roll frosting and filling. She holds up different pictures of boys to us and asks if we think they are attractive. Most of them I cannot comment on without being flagged as a pedophile, so I just smile and nod and tell her not to talk to boys (which seems to be the bulk of what she talks about). She holds up another picture and turns it away from me, towards the other student. "Dani can't see this, but don't you think he's hot?" Something in her tone has changed. I ask her if it's the boy from camp she's been texting who she mentioned a week ago. Her eyes get big. "How do you know? That's so creepy!"

I smile and tell her, "I just know."
 

Maybe it's because I've been fifteen too, or maybe it's because I've had enough girlfriends to gush with before, but I just know. She mentioned the boy a week ago, and I took note of it. I want her to know that the words she says matter and that I am listening. I want her to know that I know her and she matters, whether she's sharing big things or silly things, not so that I can influence her, but simply because I love her.

And I do love her.

 

We move upstairs to watch Shark Week as we wait for the dough to rise. She starts asking me questions about college, my family, my Florida youth group, going to a magnet school, and growing up in a sleepy beach town. She shifts back to talking about boys, and then she starts asking me about my own boy of interest from college. Her tone of voice tells me that she isn't asking to tease. Suddenly our conversation shifts from gushing to very real sharing about insecurities and frustrations and unmet expectations. We empathize with each other over our "relationships" that are going nowhere.

It all kind of sounds silly, but this camp boy matters to her, so it has to matter to me.  

 

We're in small group writing our cardboard testimonies by ourselves in different parts of the dining area upstairs. I finish mine, pray for a few minutes, and then feel uncomfortable, like I have no idea what to do with myself, like I have never done this before. I see her from across the room and feel compelled to go over to her, yet I have no idea what I'll say or do and the risk of it being even more uncomfortable is high.

I walk over anyway and sit down on the floor next to her. She tries to cover her paper with her arm, and I don't know if I should stay or go. I divert my gaze away from the paper and simply look at her, making eye contact, and smile. She pauses, moves her arm, and turns her paper towards me, revealing difficult secrets. I put my hand on her as she flips the paper to the other side that shows how Christ has made her new. I don't know what to do in that moment. I haven't a clue what to say, so I just hug her.

I hug her and I tell her that I am proud of her.
 

The girls gather together for the end of small group, and as we go around in a circle I am not sure that she will share her cardboard testimony - but I put my hand on her again as she reveals her paper to a group of teenage girls.

The night ends and I tell her again, "I just wanted to thank you for sharing in small group. I know that must have been hard. I am proud of you." She thanks me and says "It was kind of difficult, but I've grown up past that." Suddenly, the student is teaching the "master". She's fifteen and she acknowledges the power and necessity in being vulnerable, something that I have made great strides in this summer but still struggle in.

I can't help but wonder if this is what God has been working up to - the coffee date a week ago where she got a text from a boy from Texas, baking in the kitchen and giggling, watching Shark Week and sharing insecurities, and creating a space that invited painful secrets to be shared and redeemed. Mundane and serious; silly and personal; student and teacher; all of these different paradoxes are colliding.

Perhaps at Aunt Michelle's kitchen counter I learned more than domestic skills.