I’m not much of a coffee drinker, though I do enjoy about a dozen cups per year. One of my earliest forays into the coffee world involved industrial strength coffee from a construction site breakfast wagon. After my first sip, I spent the rest of that morning discreetly pouring half of the cup of “mud” onto the ground. If memory serves me right, that spot became an instant parking lot. The reason I even had a cup of coffee that morning was because I was told that it was just part of the whole construction site routine. Everyone had to have a cup of morning coffee; you weren’t a man if you abstained. To this day, I strongly suspect there were only a few who liked the coffee, but rather most everyone, if not all, enjoyed the storytelling that accompanied the routine of breakfast wagon coffee.
This morning, I went to coffee and sat around a table with family and visited for an hour or so. I drank two of my twelve cups of coffee for the year, and heard some fun stories. As much as everyone jokes about the coffee, it was good, but again, it’s not really the coffee that brings everyone together – it’s not even the donuts and cookies. It’s the visiting that makes morning coffee fun. The stories shared over coffee give me a little more insight into the storyteller – I get to know them better. I find out more about what they like and what they don’t like; their stories and how they are told reveals details about what makes each person tick. I learn about what they value, or how their values might have changed over time, or even what might have changed those values. It seems that as long as the coffee is brewing, there are stories percolating, and both are poured liberally.
For a little over a year now, I have had virtual morning coffee with a whole host of people through the “Northwoods Musings” devotional and blog. I have enjoyed it very much, though lately I have found myself longing for something, and that something is your stories. Sharing your story might be difficult for you - just like drinking my first cup of construction site coffee was - but that coffee was much more than an early morning eye-opener. It was an invitation into a fellowship that greatly increased my knowledge of the people who worked in the construction trades. It was a knowledge that still serves me well today in my practice of architecture. Morning coffee opened up opportunities I never knew existed. Just as “coffee” opens up opportunities for sharing stories, stories open up opportunities to share our lives.
No one knows this better than God. He encourages believers to be ready to give reasons for our Christian hope (1 Peter 3:15b). The “reasons” we have are born in the stories that make up our lives. They are testimonies for those who are not walking with Christ, and they are encouragements to those already walking with Him. The apostle Paul was uplifted and filled with joy at the news of what God had been doing in the lives of the believers in the early church (Colossians 1:3-5). I have no doubt that God is active in each of your lives, and that He is conforming you into the image of Christ, so I’m extending an open invitation for you to share what God has been doing in your life. It’s a way for me to get to know you better - after all, we are family. So stop me if you see me, drop a note, send an email, or pick up a phone and call. Hearing about what God has been doing with you, and through you, will be good for me. It will be good for you too.
Grace to you.
Dave Paukner
