Savor the Coffee, Not the Cups!

Life is like a Cup of Coffee - Author Unknown

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversations soon turn into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal - some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite.

He told his guests to help themselves to the coffee. After everyone had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said, "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of all your problems and stress."

"Be assured that the cups add no quality to the coffee. In most cases, it is just more expensive, and in some cases, even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup. But you consciously went for the best cups...and then you begin eyeing each other's cups to see who had the best one."

Now consider this...life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, but concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.

Savor the coffee, not the cups!

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything."

Phil. 3:13-14

Diving Deep - In Over My Head

I have been meaning to write up a post about passover, but it shall have to wait for now.
"Why is this night unlike all other nights?" Coming soon...

Afternote placed as a foreword: I make cool titles and rarely follow what I was planning to write about. Unscramble my rambles again...I dare you to follow the train of thought.
*Ahem!*
"I like trains."  
NEEERRRRHHH -
CRASH!!

Just watched The Passion by Mel Gibson. Never seen it the whole way through before. Some parts really struck me. Such as how Jesus was so SILENT through it all! You know how hard that would be? To keep quiet from biting back at your accusers. Not only did he not defend himself, he didn't cry out in pain. IMPOSSIBLE! For us as humans, it is basically a natural reaction to say ow or scream in pain at least a little. But no! He was silent.

Another point is how could those men and women stand around at watch? I naturally flinch when I know something gross is coming up, even though when I do force myself to watch I can handle it. But how could they handle it? The persecution must have been 10X worse than that showed in a silly man-made lameo effects movie at least! Yikes. Also, how could those men stand DOING that to someone?! Beating him like that...treating our Savior like a piece of meat for slaughter. And after He was thrashed they said to take him away. Lying there all bloody and more'n half dead already, why did they not just say finish Him up then? How could they stand to let Him live longer? Did they not have any human conscious? Pity in the least? Aye Columba. I wasn't impressed with the movie, but those couple things stuck out among others.

I heard something super amazing in church the other day. Pastor was talking about how the veils leading into the temple and the holy place and the most holy place were named the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So when Jesus said He is the way, truth, and life in John 14:6 it had SO much more meaning! He is saying He is the way, the path, that leads to the most holy of holies. The place where God resides. You cannot get to that place except through one direct route. No back doors leading in. Jesus is that way, the way to heaven to God!! Wow.

So I often forget how closely linked passover is to the easter celebration. It was the night of passover that Jesus went to Gethemane and prayed. that was the night that started the persecution and eventual death of our messiah. It was the day after passover that He died. Then He rose again 3 days later. So really, right now, according to the Jewish calendar, would not Jesus have already risen? Because passover was Monday. Died Tuesday afternoon...Entombed that evening. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...He would have risen today! On Good Friday. Am I wrong? Mebbe. I love passover. I somehow forget that it is so very commemorative not only of God freeing the Israelite from Egyptian slavery, but freeing US from being slaves to Satan and this world! WOW. What a week of freedom we should be celebrating.

God is starting to show me more each day why it is that my family is attacked so often by Satan during Easter. I cannot remember the last time we had a pleasant Easter. This year we are not even planning to do anything...other than a passing note on a possible large breakfast I hadn't heard mention of Easter til tonight at Bible study. I want to try and explain. But I am just starting to learn myself why it is I get so upset and depressed around this time. I don't even know the roots of my own experienced emotions from the past 5 days - but God does. I am pleased that He is showing me some of them. Perhaps I am growing. Growing in being trusted with knowing my own motives and intentions? Some are buried pretty deep down there in that cardiac muscle...
Sigh...God...I am just not strong enough. Not strong enough. Not without you...and sometimes even with you it feels that way as well.
Q. How did Jesus know He was God? Was he born with the knowledge that He is God? I didn't think babies knew anything. It is all conditioned to them in the learning process. So then, at what point did Jesus come to realize He is more than just man? Fully man and fully God He is and was. 

Ooooh! If you have never heard of the SA node, LOOK IT UP. Sinoatrial node of the heart. Sweet stuff. Makes some scripture verses even more boggling. Its very possible every word Jesus said has deep hidden meaning...OH how I want to know it ALL! hehe :D

Anyways, Jesse told me his bends story today after Bible study. Kinda hilarious and super duper awful at the same time. He was out drinking the night before his 65 ft dive. NOT ok. That means severe dehydration that puts you at a higher risk for getting the bends the next morning (not to mention it was a deep dive). He did the dive alright, but that didn't matter. The next morning he was feeling the effects of the poorly spent day with achy elbows and shoulder all over. Called St. Kates (FL) which was the best dive hospital around and they said to come in for a look-see.
On the way he picked up breakfast (a garlic bagel with garlic cream cheese). The doc prescribed the normal treatment for decompression, and Jesse spent the next 6 hrs in a decompression chamber with the doc. They cannot let you go down there alone in case something happens. So the doc counts it as a dive. The chamber puts you back under pressure and then slowly brings you "up" so that you can gradually release the nitrogen gas built up in your blood. The red gatorade they handed him through the ports went all over his paper gown because he was shaky and couldn't hold it. The oxygen hood caused him to breath in his own garlic-y breath over again for the next 6 hrs. Sticky red garlic man was not happy when he came out of the chamber and found his wife had come to "visit" only to discover there was nothing she could do and went home. Taking his clothes with him. So the nurse borrowed him some scrubs and he trekked on home.

Quite the adventure I would say! I would have loved to see the expression on the instructor's face later that week when Jesse showed his exciting "dive" of 6 hrs to him...haha. So moral of the story is to do your dives right, don't go to deep, and don't come up from the deep to fast. Yup yup.
I hope I can dive with him someday. He is super duper awesome. After talking to him (though he hasn't been diving in 20 YEARS!) I am now itchy to dive again. Ooh Ooh Ooh that is one more thing I am both terrified and excited for this summer...contributing to my moods of late as well.

This song is far to happy to resemble me right now, but I like it. After all, I am decided to be happy. Share it with me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0BbDPL1WA

Torn Tears

Drawn to tears.
Ann anchor weighs down the water.
Streaming like mini sobs down in erroded paths.
There is no laughing here.
Encased by people.
Shudder. Sob.
Hide it as a cough, a chuckle.
Curled to a cube behind the waterfall.
The beaver roars.
I sneak back to my hiding place.
A peculiar one it is, right in the open.
Replace the warning signs' chains.
They bind me.
I cannot let them in, no matter how much ice is tromped.
Perhaps in the future the  iron shall snap - like frozen rubber, brittle and broken shall become.
Squooshed in a closet full of finery.
A stranger sits on my lap. My foot falls asleep.
The boat sounds a horn - loud and blaring the siren sounds.
I wake up.
Was I dreaming? Or just exaggerating?
Either way the waves slap on land and across my face.
OK OK I'm awke now! I will go back to the present. Tears may not reign.
Chains have drawn up the anchor.
The moment past in a flick of the nail.
The card goes flying, but unlike the colorful figures...no one notices.
Silence prevails.

Mah

So I learned something about myself when reading through old journals and blog posts...I don't make ANY sense. Whatsoever. At all. Well a lot of good that did me to write all those posts! :p
Its pretty bad when you cannot follow your own logic just a couple weeks after puzzling life through. Meh.