Coffee

I spend a lot of time around coffee. I drink coffee at home. I hang out in coffee shops. I work as a barista. My friends like coffee. We talk about coffee.

I still remember the first cup of coffee I had that I enjoyed. It was from a coffee shop and it had lots of cream and sugar in it. My prior exposure to coffee had been stale-tasting Folgers at "coffee fellowship time" after church.

Blech!

This particularly life changing cup of coffee was sipped while in conversation with a new friend. I remember the topics...the conversation was that good. I think perhaps what makes coffee such a meaningful part of my life is the relational aspect of it. 

Now, I love coffee. I love the flavour--I now drink it with lots of cream, but no sweetening of any kind. BUT I enjoy it a billion times more if I have a friend sitting across the table or next to me on the couch. Relationship is what matters--coffee just facilitates it.

My friend Graeme says that the key to winning the Western Hemisphere is a simple coffee mug. "You put a cup of something warm in their hands and people talk," he said. As I thought about it, I realized he was absolutely right! Some of my favorite conversations with strangers have been in a coffee shop. Some of my most fruitful relationships have been built over coffee...or tea, for those of you who prefer it.

Coffee shop evangelism...try it. Relationships are what matter, because the only thing you can take with you to heaven is people.

Home

"Maybe surrounded by a million people...I still feel all alone...I wanna go home."

I love the words to that Michael Buble song...they connect with me. I feel an incredible longing within myself to be home. The only problem is, I don't know where home is. Home has always been a very fluid concept in my life. Twenty-one years old and I've moved as many times. I'm not exaggerating--I actually counted it up today. 

"Let me go home...I've had my run...baby, I'm done...I gotta go home."

Scripture says that we look forward to a heavenly homeland...that we are strangers and pilgrims in this world. I know that my longing to be home will not be fulfilled completely until I find my way to my heavenly homeland. But, God, I want a home here, now--a promise of the things to come...a glimpse into the perfection of eternity.

I am finding more and more that this place feels like home...but not with YWAM...the community of Homer. I seem to have finally realized after two years here that life does exist outside of YWAM...that it's okay to have friends who are not in YWAM. I feel like I've wasted so much time getting to know the amazing new friends I've found. I want to stay...I want to go...I don't know. 

My heart is restless, trying to find my home. I have put my creativity on hold for so long...I don't know where to go in order to cultivate it. I feel like that is the new season God is drawing me into...a season of cultivating my creativity. I have laid it down for two years...laid it down in order to serve the vision of others...I feel like God is handing it back to me.