Coffee Shop Journal

What an amazing thought that is! The scripture, of course, doesn’t tell me God is scrapbooking. It refers to it as a “scroll of remembrance,” where God writes down everything we do. Sounds a lot like a scrapbook to me! Doesn’t that just make you happy, thinking about God caring enough to document our progress?

Chapter Two of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day gave me several new thoughts, including that last one. Sometimes it feels like we work in anonymity, doing what needs to be done and no one notices. Maybe your kids thank you for finding the cordless phone in the couch and putting the DVD’s back in their case, but mine don’t. Countless tasks fly by every day and no one notices…unless they aren’t done! But here’s the good news: God notices each and every good thing we do, scrapbooks it, and beams over us like a proud papa.

The second thought that I am pondering is this one: “In the beginning, the Spirit of God was hovering over the chaos. And nothing has changed. God is still hovering over chaos. The creation story is a microcosm of what God wants to do in your life. He hovers over the chaotic situations ready to create order and beauty. He wants to fill the void.” (Pg 25 ,26) I don’t know about you, but that thought comforts me because if there is one word to describe my life it is chaotic! (Check out how crazy our life can get here). So God is hovering over the chaos that is teenage girls, elderly mothers and the rotating cast of characters in my life. He is hovering, and he is creating, just like he did in the beginning.

Other questions inspired by this chapter:
• What am I praying for, reduced odds against me or greater miracles for me?
• Do I view God as too big or too small to handle my prayer requests?

One last quote to leave with you. “God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go.” (pg. 30)

I just read about a very interesting book called “Pop Goes the Church” by Tim Stevens. recently released, Pop Goes the Church examines the church’s role in using pop culture to find a common point of communication with the people around us. I have not read this book (ordering it tonight), but the sample chapter on their website is very interesting. Go check it out! Here is the link to the book’s site. 

This blog is written on the road for the first time in its very short history! I am sitting in Barnes and Noble at the Mall of Georgia, outside of Atlanta. We are here on the proverbial College Road Trip (see Dancing Thru Her Daddy’s World for that!), and David and I nabbed a couple of hours free this afternoon. We spent an amazing lunch with our friends Scott and Natalie and Silas, where I was once more reminded of the unchanging nature of true friendship! When we sit down with Scott and Natalie, there is never enough time to catch up and move ahead! Scott, by the way, revealed one of his personal habits to us that is also one of my little quirks: taking pictures of books in bookstores that he wants to remember for later. What a memory saver I’ve found that to be…can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen an intriguing book only to have to try to recreate the section of the bookstore I was browsing in order to find it again! So Scott and I were able to pull out our phones, scroll through pictures, and launch a great conversation! Is that a little like pulling out baby pictures only different?

After lunch we found another coffee spot, called the Sunshine Cafe. Interesting. Espresso in a basement room that smells like chinese food. The espresso was oddly good.

Which brings me to now: sitting in a bay window over PF Chang’s watching the world go by on an overcast Georgia day. I’m noticing once again that there is a common coffee shop culture of which I am a part. The cast of characters changes from my “home office” in  Palm Beach Gardens, but they are all eerily familiar nonetheless. I love my little coffee shop world! I feel at home surrounded by coffee and books, and the people who love them both.

Thanks, Scott and Nat, for a great lunch and a whole new stack of books to photograph!

These are the best words I hear every day! Meet me for coffee. Maybe they come from my friend Robin, who loves to escape with me in the middle of crazy days. Sometimes I hear them from my neighbors over the side fence. Most often I hear these words from my husband, ready to connect on the back porch after a long day. I wish I could hear these words from family and friends who are too far away to rendezvous at our favorite Starbucks. Meet me for coffee. I feel warm inside just thinking about it. Maybe that’s the power of the concept of “Third Place” so popular right now. Something inside of us longs to connect over warmth and friendship. In a coffee shop you can be whoever you want to be at that moment. I even have friends I only see at my favorite coffee shop (which happens to be inside Barnes and Noble…no surprise there!). And I think I inherited the coffee shop gene. When my dad died several years ago we had to make the rounds of all the local Dunkin’ Donuts, in order to inform the myriad of characters he’d met at each one over the years. That might be how I’d like to be remembered myself…with a last round of Starbucks tasting opportunities to celebrate my homegoing. Just a thought!

There are days when I sit down on my chair on the back porch and God whispers in the breezes that float across the pool. There are times I am walkng through a crowded mall and God troubles something inside, and causes me to pay attention to what He has to say. And then there are times I pick up a book and it seems as if God has written down words through the author just for me. In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day was God’s clarion call to me. “I love you. I know you are in a pit, and there are scary eyes staring at you. I’m going to do something great with that Lion and you. Hold tight.” From the first chapter I realized that God was trying to get my attention and speak comfort into my life through this book. How amazing is that?

The premise of “In a Pit” is this: In 2 Samuel 23: 20,21 a man named Benaiah chases a lion, who falls into a pit. Benaiah should have been running away…this is a lion, after all. But he doesn’t. He jumps into the pit with the lion. On the surface this looks like the wrong time and the wrong place. But it isn’t. Benaiah kills that lion. Later he is promoted through King David’s army as bodyguard and captain of the guard. That lion – which looked like Benaiah’s greatest nightmare – was his resume. God uses the “lions” in our life to build into us the character we need for the jobs He has planned for us. In other words, as Mark Batterson says, God is in the resume building business!

So here are the questions I am processing as a result of the first chapter of this book.
• If God puts us where we need to be, what does that say about where I am right now? I really do feel like there are lions circling around me in my life, and they scare me. I am trying to realize that being scared is the right reaction to a lion, but that doesn’t mean God wants to take the lion out of my life. He wants to use it to build my resume. Wow.
• What am I trying to put off to a better time? You know how this one goes. “I will do that for you, God, I will. But right now there is a lion I need to run away from. When I am safe and cozy back at the palace I will turn my attention to that.” What if God wants us to deal with that issue right now, in the pit with the scary lion? Maybe now is the opportunity that won’t be around later.
• What is already on my resume? What are the lions that I have already dealt with that God wants to use right now? God doesn’t waste learning experiences, and I need to reevaluate my past to identify the current opportunities.
• If I have the guts to face my lion, will I give the glory to God? No guts, no glory! Benaiah used that lion experience to later serve his king. Will I?
• How is my stewardship of my lion experiences? Am I using the imagination God has built into me? My mind? My hospitality? Stewardship of money is easy. Stewardship of my creativity? Now that take some thinking.

Finally, Mark Batterson unknowingly quoted my father by saying “Success is doing the best you can with what you have where you are.” Sure, down the road five or ten years we may be able to face the same lion with a different set of skills. But right now, in this place, God wants us to do the best we can with what you have. I can do that.

Today we had a hurricane shutter inspection at our house. Even if the dog hadn’t let us know (loudly) that the inspector was here, we would have known anyway. How? His smell! The guy was a smoker, and when we opened the front door billows of his cigarette smoke wafted in. He was still lit up, and even though he stayed outside, our house smelled like him within minutes. It got me thinking about our “aroma,” which should be a pleasing offering to the Lord. I’m not talking, of course, of a physical aroma that can be changed by a trip into Hollister for a new perfume. I’m talking about the aroma of our lives, the sum total of who we are and how we represent our faith. Do we stink up a whole room with our attitude before we even step foot inside? Or do we make the whole house seem like a freshly lit candle? What do we smell like?

I love to read blogs late at night while I am settling down from the day. One of my favorites is the very popular Ragamuffin Soul. Written by a worship pastor at Buckhead Church in Atlanta, Carlos Whittaker, Ragamuffin has challenged me and delighted me. Tonight Ragamuffin put Easter in perspective for me. Maybe, like me, you take the opportunity to worship for granted once in awhile. You won’t after you read Carlos’ post tonight. Click through on this link. It’s amazing.          Carlos’ Blog 

A first post on a new blog is way too much pressure for anyone to handle! I’ve been stressing over what to say, how to say it. What is important enough for my first topic? I can’t do it. I refuse to do it. So I’m just going to tell you what I am thinking about Coffee Shop Journal right now, and we’ll jump in.

I never drank my first cup of coffee until I was 35, and I certainly wouldn’t have picked coffee shops as a place to hang out back then, either. But here we are, some years later, and I can confidently debate roasts of coffee, techniques of brewing, and even the merits of certain coffee mugs over others. I have a decided preference on that subject. I’ve also discovered that a lot of life is lived in the coffee shop. Deals are made and broken. Friends are made, or not.

A good coffee shop is a place to stop and regroup, think about the next steps in life or in the day, before heading back out into the world to make a difference. And that is how I view this blog, as well. This is a place to stop and ponder the next steps of life. I am passionate about living out my faith in the places God has given me. In the Old Testament God assigned each tribe of Israelites the place in which they were to live in their new land. God often called a person from one place to another (think Abraham heading out of Ur). God cares about places, and the place you are in is no accident. It is the realization that God cares about places which has focused my ministry in the past few years. I am on a journey to settle into my community and my life, take stock of what is around me, and jump in. I’ve grown tired of waiting for someday, and am learning to value now. Which is why I am starting Coffee Shop Journal now…even before I know exactly where it will fit in life. It is a place from which to grow, and I hope you will join me.