The Tea Cup Minister

I have inadvertently started a ministry at my house.  I have lots of other ministry projects going simultaneously so taking on any new endeavors was not what I was looking for.  All that being said and the fact that my plans seem to be upended by God pretty regularly these days, I have found myself running a healthy ministry with people routinely taking advantage of what I have to offer, a cup of tea and a listening ear.

It all started with two relatives who were at a discourse.  They decided after years of a cold war of sorts that it was time to sit down at the negotiation table and diplomatically mend fences.  Every Wednesday at about the same time, I'd start the kettle.  Sometimes one would show, sometimes neither but I remained faithful to my being available with a ready cup of hot tea for whomever sat down.  Over time, the routine and the mediation has started heading things in the right direction.  To God, for that one I am grateful.

Angels must have gotten the word out about my success because more people started happening by.  They'd shrug off their coats and drop their handbags and I'd ask, "care for a spot?" as I held up the cold kettle over the stove.  Most nodded in agreement, some asked for coffee but everyone took a seat at my dining room table and I'd follow suit after I set up cups and bags next to the stove to await hot water.  The anticipation of tea and my staring blankly at the person in front of me seemed to start the conversation rolling.  People would tell me that they just stopped in to say "hi" but they end up saying a whole lot more by the time the tea bag was cold on the spoon in front of them.  I was happy to listen and share my views when the need called for.  Sometimes it was a lively conversation of the bible, those are the ones I love the most.  God is always a splendid and timely topic at my table.  A good God chat can go on for hours around here.

I must have been doing something right because the ones who happened by came back again.  They'd come and I'd fire up the stove, no need to ask.  I knew what we'd be doing.  I'd make small talk while I got out my supplies and we settle in again for a spell.  Somehow my daughter always seemed to be perfectly enthralled in her own thing as soon as someone came in.  You'd hardly know she was there.  Must be those angels again.  They keep my otherwise rambunctious pre-schooler occupied during my ministering time.

I love the tea times with friends and family. I get ministering too.  Just caring enough to come by and entrust me with their thoughts and trials says a lot about how much they value our relationship.  Now, when I got to the store, I stock up on tea supplies.  I have a bunch of different kinds now.   I think I'll spring for some nicer cups.  I have been using plain old coffee mugs.  I think the new tea cups with spark a fun start to the conversations and let my friends know that I find our tea time special too.  In a world that is ever revolving around the Internet and social networking, it is nice to have people who treasure the art of the in-person conversation like I do.

I'm Stuck

"Dad, I'm stuck!", drew my attention to the left on the playground as I was pushing my squealing daughter on the swings.  My mother's instinct to attend to the needs of a child and tendency to be nosey, even if it is just visual, drew me in the direction of what I heard.  My eyes found the little boy that I heard perched on top of a large jungle gym made out of a maze of ropes and pulleys anchored to large wooden poles.  He looked like a cricket with a baseball cap sitting on top of the world's largest ball of twine. 

His father called out to him from across the playground as he started walking toward him.  "Just start climbing down, son."  Even as the words came out, the little boy started shifting back and forth on his perch, holding on for dear life.

"I can't.  I'm stuck."  My heart rate picked up as I watched him.  The more his father yelled out to him to just come down the more he seemed to dig his feet into the ropes he was standing on.  It was as if he was frozen in place.  His father stood at the bottom, looking up and him and shading his eyes from the son as he tried to coach his son down from the top of the jungle gym.

"Just put your foot over there and grasp on to that rope and climb down!"

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You got up there and now you can get yourself back down."

"I can't."

"Son, why can't you?"

"I'm scared."

Isn't that it with most things we are paralyzed by?  I don't know how many times we remain stuck in the same place, same relationships, same job, same situations.   When the pace of my heart quickened as I listened to the little boy tell his dad that he was stuck, I wasn't worried about his safety.  My body was remembering what that kind of anxiety feels like and responded.  It was familiar. 

I remember one relationship I was in that made me miserable.  I lamented to my friends often about how unhappy this person made me.  I didn't see any hope for a happy future with him.  Despite the tension of misery followed by gifts and promises to be better from now on, nothing changed.  I knew it was not going to but I continued to play the game.  On more than five occasions, friends told me to end the relationship.  Just leave him.  I couldn't.  I had reasons, I had excuses.  We shared a house, we shared bills.  What about our friends?  What about the dog?  No, our lives were too intertwined.  It wasn't that though.  None of the reasons were valid.  I wasn't imprisoned by this situation.  I was afraid to change it. 

Fear of change seems to be something most people suffer from.  I am no different.  Change equals new and feels scary.  I know.  I am learning too but I feel as though my life has changed so much in the last two years that maybe I am just getting desensitized to it.  Maybe it just takes climbing the jungle gyms of life enough times to know that we can do it without falling.  Hands and feet could slip.  Maybe our baseball cap falls to the ground as we make your way up or down but we can pick it up later.   We see other people climbing on the same jungle gym too, they seem okay but when it comes to us we can envision cataclysmic disaster in an instant.  In an effort to avoid calamity we don't move.  I know I've made mistakes, big ones too but I'm still here to tell you about them.  Funny thing is, the more we fall down, the better we get at climbing. 

"People want what you have but they don't want to go through what you went through to get it". - Joyce Meyer

The world is filled with people finding shortcuts to something more without having to do any work to achieve it. Fail proof 'get rich' books offer the solution to unlimited wealth. All you have to do is read and apply. The diet drink that transforms you to the body you've always dreamed of. All you have to do is charge your card for a small monthly fee and sip your way to slimmer hips and thighs in no time. You can undo years worth of unhealthy emotional damage if you just believe in yourself. It all sounds great. Why wouldn't it? I'd be the next in line for all of these if they delivered as promised. Do you know anyone who can testify to their validity besides the actors on the commercial?

If there were any one comment I hear more from my readers than anything else it is that I am an inspiration. It seems that people who have even heard of me offer my ears and eyes the same words of encouragement. I am not lifted by the sentiments though, I am terrified. Fear and trembling is my approach to what I have to teach. In my oft bumbling gaffes through life, I have been trained in great wisdom. My written lessons are merely a recount of experiences, nothing more. There is no school to attend, no magic pill, no instant solution. A mind formed by trial, has somehow made me attractive to others. To them, I have much to offer. I don't want to give them something more than I have. So dangerous is the law of attraction. Many have been given the gift of teaching but they get caught up in its power that they lose the lessons they've been given and reach for something more in order to keep the throngs in front of them. They forgot one thing. The audience is part of the gift. The giver can take it all away in the absence of acknowledgement and gratitude. Never elevate yourself higher than your station. Someone put you there and that is exactly where He wants you where it be weeks, years or hours. You are filling a purpose.

Were I to recount in a continuous chronological display all the trials I've overcome in my life in order to have what I've been given it would be a story too sad to read. The burden would drown the joy. No, the lessons digested in part and parcel are much easier to take in. Wisdom also brings discernment so I know this to be true. If you've ever read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt you'd know what I am talking about. Mr. McCourt followed his first book up with an equally dismal sequel, " 'Tis". I read through the first and then half of the second before I shut the cover in discouragement and presented myself to my recommending mother to ask "does this guy's life ever get better? I can hardly stand to read on!" to which my dad piped up from across the room to say, "Sure, he became a bestselling author and millionaire". Lord, forbid it to be true of me. I desire something much more than fame or money. I want the ability to offer hope to the suffering and for others to see the evidence of peace in my life despite great circumstances. Discernment helps you hold your tongue when you need to and brings the courage to share the truth when you ought.

Yes, I have endured. No, I am not bitter. I've met rooms full of people and the irony is the ones who have suffered the least are the ones who complain the most. Wisdom brings levity. I don't get angry when they spew negativity. I chuckle to myself as if to say, 'if you only knew how bad it could be'. They want to know the shortcut to happiness. There isn't one. I submit you learn to be content in the situation not absent of it. We're it to not be so, there would be psychiatric facilities packed to the gills with victims instead of arenas full of attendees anxious to hear from overcomers. No one would be well enough to bring the message hope to those so in need of healing.

Enjoy your blessings, they number more than your trials. I've only learned to focus on them because I have been brought through so many of the latter. Some scratch their heads at how I still stand. I understand their wondering but I have a secret to share with you. I am grateful for every minute of pain. Dare I say, I would not be the person I am today without it. I have been given a gift to replace what has been lost in the turmoil that far outweighs what I've had to let go of. I wouldn't want it any other way. I count it great joy that I have the ability to see all this and write it down for you to read. May it renew your spirit and help you go on. You can't get what I have any other way than being brought through what I have. While I pray that you would be spared, I would like to offer you a by-product of lessons though. It's hope.

The New Chapter

As I sit amongst humidity and palm trees on this pleasant little patch in the ocean, my mind is on Boston. I put my house on the market before I left on my road trip, fully thinking it would take some time to sell it and that I might not be able to take as long as I wanted if I had to keep paying my mortgage for an extended period of time. Financial responsibilities were definitely a factor, as they should. Much to my surprise, my house was on the market for less than a couple of weeks. My mind then went to how I would get back to Boston, when did I want to go there, and what to do with my "stuff". I have a lot of stuff. Some mine, some my late husband's, some my baby girl's. No matter where I ended up, it is sure to not have 2 living rooms, a dining room and 3 to 4 bedrooms. What was I going to do with all of this? Another answer to prayer. I am downsizing and the buyer's are upsizing. They will take whatever stuff I don't want. Marvelous! Things are really falling into place and quickly. I can hardly keep my head straight with it. I am amazed at how fast things are moving. I keep reminding myself and others that I am not pacing this adventure, rather it seems to be pacing me. I am just going with the flow and seeing what happens. It is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Major change does that.

Speaking of change, I was desperate for it. Sitting in my home, the house Greg and I made was depressing. He loved that house, in fact, he bid on it without telling me and we won the bid on the offer. He was so excited when he told me that they accepted the offer and we got the house. I was so furious that our first big purchase together was made without my knowledge. Truth was, I didn't love the house, he did. We moved in and I did end up liking it some or at least living with it but a split-level in the middle of no where and an hour from my friends and family was not what I had in mind as far as settling down. I decorated around the ugly teal tile floors and gross turquoise counter tops. Yes, you read that right. I should be on "Design on a Dime" I feel like I managed to decorate around the worst of flooring and counter faux pas. The size of the house and the remoteness of almost 2 acres of land and no neighbors within a quarter mile in any direction made me uneasy being by myself with a 3 year old. If anything happened to us, no one would know. I wanted to be around people who would know to knock on my door if they hadn't seen me in a few days and a little less isolated so that others would know who should or would come and go from my house. I had none of that and I can't use the riding lawn mower any way, nor do I care to. I wanted something manageable and quaint.

This leaves me with today. I am glad the house is sold. I am glad to be out of Rockland, MA. and I am glad to be on to something and where new. That doesn't mean I am not sad to let go of the past. It is not easy to change no matter how much it is needed. I am reflecting a lot. I am pondering all that I need to do and what needs to go where and realizing that as of April 12th, I will probably never see that house again or at least not like I used to. The old really is passing away and it is making way for the new. It's a good thing, but it isn't a good feeling. It means I really am moving on and making a new life. There is part of me that wishes I didn't have to do that and part of me that wants to plow forward and make all this worth something in the end. I am conflicted. Most people are when there are where I am at. I am not afraid to change, I've done it many times and always come out much better in the end. It's just the "I can't see the whole picture" part but then again, that is what I trust God for.

Next up, hopefully manatees with cousin Laurie.

Stay tuned....