Sometimes I think about who I’d invite to have coffee with you and I. One person on my list for you to meet: Serenity Domenico.
Serenity is a college-student-turned-God-sized-dreamer I connected with last year. She lives one town over and a mutual friend invited us both to her house for dinner. I fell in love with Serenity’s humor, authenticity and huge heart right away. The mutual friend who introduced us and I quickly took to calling Serenity “T & T” — tenacious and tender.
Serenity has a gift for reaching out to people. And this summer she felt God was asking her to reach right over the border into the state next to ours to do an internship at a coffee shop called Joe’s Addiction. Yes, Joe’s serves up lattes. But more importantly, they serve up love to some of the area’s neediest {and sometimes seediest} citizens in a variety of ways. To put it another way, I think Jesus would have worked at Joe’s.
Serenity also tutors refugee children. In the building where she lives, the population is 30% refugees and in the one down the street it’s 90%. The world is at her doorstep. Wow.
When Serenity headed out for the summer I handed her a copy of You’re Made for a God-sized Dream. A few weeks later she sent me this in a text…
My Life Statement: I am called to express my faith through love, especially by bringing hope to the hearts of communities through friendship.
And a few minutes later…
Holley. I think I’m a missionary.
Yep. She sure is.
Did I mention she’s twenty? And that in those years she’s navigated more difficulties than many people do in a lifetime? And that she still has a heart that’s wide open in ways that make me want to be more like her…because she makes me want to be more like Jesus?
Serenity is a God-sized Dreams girl who’s just getting started. And what do we do when someone gets married or has a baby or moves into a new house? We throw a party for them and we give them gifts to start that new season of their lives.
So, friend, will you help me throw a little God-sized Dreams shower for Serenity? There are some things she needs. And she has no idea I’m writing this post. So it’s even a surprise shower.
You can find out more about what Serenity needs here.
Serenity is teaching me this: the love of Jesus is a powerful thing. It’s bigger than your past, it’s wide enough to create a bridge between you and any other person {no matter how different they are from you}, it’s strong enough to stand on when you walk right out of your comfort zone and into your calling.
I hope you get to have coffee with Serenity and I one day. We’d laugh so hard your mascara would run and your sides would ache. And we’d dream together. Most of all, we’d talk about how a little bit of love can make a big’ol difference in this wild world. Because it really can.
XOXO
Holley
