Peace

One of my favorite things to do is drink my coffee from a mug on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

I literally look forward to it every week.

I tend to wake up almost an hour before my family on most weekends and some of my very favorite moments are spent nursing that cup of coffee as I spend some time to myself and with the Lord. My usual routine is to make my coffee and then write in my journal (lately, I’ve been working through the Cultivate Renewal journal) before taking some time to read or do a bit of writing. Fun writing, not paper writing.

There is just something about taking the time to drink coffee from a mug that says slow to me. Slow and still. Peaceful.

During the week, I always prepare my coffee in my travel mug and drink it once I’m at work and receiving my students for the day. The coffee is savored or enjoyed slow. Travel mugs say busy. They say “I’m on the go and I need to get going.”

Bet you didn’t know coffee cups said so much, did you?

Well, to me they do. This week, I caught myself in the middle of the week already burned out and exhausted. Weary and overworked, I found myself yearning for that Saturday morning cup of coffee even more than I usually do. That was when I had an epiphany of sorts.

Who said I couldn’t try and inject some of that same stillness and peace into my work week? The next morning, I headed off to work with one of my favorite mugs in tow and a plan to make some room in my morning work routine. Coffee may not really have magic healing powers and it may not make my entire day run smoothly, but it truly does amazing things for my soul in the mornings.

Armed with a cup of coffee and time devoted to Jesus, I think I’m starting to find a bit of that weekend serenity during the week.

Happy New Year, everyone!

There has been a plethora of 2016 recap posts and 2017 resolutions posts in the blogging world this past week, it’s come to be expected at this time of year.

2016 was an interesting year.

The year began with the losses dear family members, my paternal grandmother and our sweet Nellie in January. The New Year was a ending of sorts on a chapter of my life in which the Lord rescued me, guided me, and restored me. In the time between December 2013 to January 2016, the Lord called six of my family members home to Him. He called me to step out and make a way for myself in the church and led me to a new church home. He tested my faith through the students in my classroom, through the disease that my dad carries in his body, and through calling two of my closest relatives – my maternal grandmother and my Aunt Shelia – home to Him just 39 hours apart from each other.

Though this season came to a close in January 2016, I spent the remainder of the year wrestling in many ways with my next steps. My life had been changed, that much I knew. As I stood in the midst of a world that was falling apart around me, I knew I had experienced the amazing and unbelievable peace that could only come from the presence of Christ Jesus. The barriers that I had around my heart had come tumbling down and I was finally able to feel Him more fully and more profoundly than ever before in my life. I knew how to worship Him and sing His praises in that season because I had just seen firsthand what leaning into Him could look and feel like in the midst of turmoil. But once the dust had settled? Where I did I go from there?Read More »

Peace in a Coffee Mug

He Walks Before