The Brass Grommet: February 2019

Friday, February 15, 2019

The Great Granddaughter of the Girl in the Photo

Pour Yourself a Cup

Here is my remembrance photograph of Dolly Parton's whimsical lyric, "Pour myself a cup of ambition." I have discovered how pleasingly coffee slips down the back of my throat when I'm drinking all my hopes for the day in that liquid ambition.

When I have done 4 loads of laundry before 10 in the morning and am certain to get the last 4 loads done before 2 in the afternoon ...

When I have tallied 10,000 steps before noon, even before walking the Chuffer...

When I have gathered the bunnies hidden under the chairs without leaving carrots on the floor...

When I have spied behind the curtains and collected the agoraphobic arachnids...

When I have chopped vegetables and started a full meal before people are banging fists on the table...

When I have purchased seven more gallons of milk to replace the ones that keep going missing...

When I have patiently listened to catastrophe be misspelled 3 times and am suitably puzzled why the definition of obstruct is related to the sun's surface and abruptly means to hinder or block...

I, fueled on coffee, have reached my ambitions.

That's not quite true. Ambitions are slippery things and as soon as you have sized one out they tend to grow proportionately bigger and further away.

When I started to drink coffee in a country of confusement, it was really more like a cup of contentment. It was a moment to sit and savor that the Lord is good when nothing is making sense. The warmth of the coffee seemed to warm my soul with the truth claims of my Creator God.

"I will never leave you nor forsake you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Have you not heard how I work on your behalf? How I give nations for your ransom. How I carry you through the flood waters and how the fire doesn't dare burn you."

Along the way, coffee drinking became just coffee drinking. As new challenges arose, I tucked away this prayer that seemed painfully beautiful.

I am willing to receive what you give.
I am willing to lack what you withhold.
I am willing to relinquish what you take.
I am willing to suffer what you inflict.
I am willing to be what you require.

When I first read those lines, it was like being forced to swallow a cup of contentment. I didn't want to swallow that cup of Christian nonsense, because it was too hard to imagine the taking, the withholding and the inflicting. I struggled over that deliberate choice to quiet my restless, ambitious heart, because I knew it all came back to me trusting God's character. God is good and he can be trusted. In the sipping of some of life's unwanted grinds, I wept my ambitions and Christ dried my tears with his thumb. The Lord is ever so kind and gentle.

Hasten the day when I, fueled on Christ, daily treasure his ambitions and find mine in his.

Dear friends, when you are stumbling into the kitchen, you have a choice of what you pour. May you pour yourself a a steaming cup of contentment and drain it dry.