02 Aug 2022 Dirtwater and the secret ingredients

Posted at 8:31 PMh in Faith by

By Laurie Green 

What I’m about to share may forever damage my reputation around town, but I’m just going to say it. Here we go … I am not a fan of coffee! Whew, that feels good to get that confession off my chest. LOL. Now don’t get me wrong. I drink coffee every single day (according to my husband, it’s more like I drink creamer with a little splash of dirtwater). Dirtwater is what I jokingly refer to as black coffee, because that’s exactly what it tastes like to me … dirt and water.

Now my husband is a huge coffee lover and he likes nothing more than a plain, hot cup of black dirtwater. Funny sidenote here, when we first met I didn’t dare tell Will this sordid secret about myself. Why? Well, because he always invited me out for a cup of coffee, and I liked him a lot more than I hated dirtwater so I pretended to love it. Twenty-four and some odd years later, we still laugh about how I would down that awful stuff just to spend time with him.

The funny thing is, as much as I dislike the taste of coffee, it is a daily morning routine with Will and me. Every morning, Will gets up before me, brews a pot of that hot dirtwater, grabs my favorite cup, and transforms that stuff into a delicious concoction that I can’t wait to drink. Fun fact, I have been drinking this sweetened dirtwater out of the same coffee cup for more than 20 years! It was a beloved gift from Will before he knew my distaste for coffee. He is definitely my very own magical barista who transforms dirtwater into something I enjoy.

Isn’t it funny how much you can dislike something, but given the right circumstances and the correct ingredients, it can become something you love and look forward to everyday? An example is how I used to struggle reading my Bible each day because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I had trouble pronouncing names, towns, etc. I would find myself behaving just like I did with Will and those awful cups of dirtwater I would drink and pretend to like. I pretended to love reading my Bible every time the subject came up. I was embarrassed to be a so-called Christian and yet struggle so much to enjoy my reading time. All that changed when I had a friend invite me to join a daily Bible study online.

In my defense, it was called The Daily Walk Bible and I thought it was a devotional book. I LOVE reading devotionals; they make perfect sense to me. I joined the Facebook group, signed up for the daily emails, and was utterly shocked when my book arrived and I realized it was the full-fledged, thousand-page Bible, not just a little daily devotional like I was expecting. However, things were about to change!

Enter Christina Munoz Madsen. If daily Bible reading felt like drinking a cup of dirtwater to me, she was the barista extraordinaire of Bible reading. Madsen has mastered the skill of making daily Bible reading enjoyable and relatable with her unique daily emails that break things down into bite-size pieces. She is the wonderful secret ingredient that makes something that was hard for me to digest into something I look forward to indulging in every single day!

And as I’m continuing this journey to be the best version of myself, not only spiritually but physically, I have to also thank my sweet friend Holly Fox. She introduced me to this amazing Bible study and encourages me daily to get out of bed and work out, and be the best version of myself. She makes exercise fun and is the fitness barista of kickboxing. LOL. 

With all that said, I encourage you to find those special ingredients that make doing the hard stuff just a little easier. Search diligently for those Proverbs 27:9 people in your life, for a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.

Laurie Green
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