Sheer glory...

The other morning I thought to myself that my soul is like my coffee.

Not the taste. Not the color. Certainly not the sheer glory of the substance.

I make my coffee in a French press each morning. The problem is that the tiny, itty bitty washer (screw thing) which holds the press part of the contraption together got washed down our drain many months ago. Why are the most important things in life the easiest to lose?

So now I put the coffee grinds into my French press, pour water into the container, and then strain it by hand into my coffee cup.

I know. That sounds like a lot of work for one cup of coffee.

It is worth it.

Because after I add milk and sugar to my coffee and take my first few sips, the morning officially kicks off. And I become quite a happy woman in the process.

But somewhere near the middle of my cup, I start feeling full and I sometimes start feeling nauseous. I still like it though, so I keep drinking.

As I get closer to the bottom of my cup, the color of my coffee starts to change. There is less milk there, so the shade gets darker. But I still keep drinking.

The last few sips are terrible to be honest. The strainer that I use is not fine enough to catch all of the coffee grinds. So usually, my last gulp consists of undissolved sugar and undissolved grinds.

Nasty yes. But for some strange reason, I take that last gulp everyday and each time I kind of do a shake my head and scrunch my face like I am drinking cough medicine move.

But I think I drink the cup to the bottom because I view my coffee as a whole thing. As in, I am not thinking about the great part at the top, the alright part in the middle, and the nasty part at the bottom. To me, it is a cup of one thing, though clearly it has different parts.

The other morning when I got to the disgusting bottom of my cup, I did think of my soul.

Because basically, I can be great on the surface. Go a little deeper and I am an alright sort of human begin. But go to the bottom and…

Yep, it is disgusting at the bottom of my heart.

Being involved in fulltime ministry for the past eleven months has taught me quite a number of things. One thing that I have learned is that a lot of individuals put people in ministry up on a pedestal. Especially missionaries.

Missionaries are expected to be social, funny, and hospitable while being great spouses and parents while being incredibly effective in ministry. In the same way that some people look at their pastor with stars in their eyes, it happens to missionaries as well.

I am not saying that people in ministry should not be held to a higher standard. Anyone who is considered a leader should. However, the truth is that missionaries are quite ordinary people.

Ordinary servants.

It is easy to think that there must be something unique and special about people on the mission field. I think the temptation is to believe that God gave them a gift that the rest of us did not receive. A higher dose of the Holy Spirit or something. That must be why they are the ones serving in a different culture.

Yeah it is not true. Most of the problems that individuals and families struggle with in America exist here, just the shape of those problems can be a little different.

All of the problems in my character that I had before Kenya came with me here. Those problems followed me hard. And even newer problems have arisen in my life since I came into ministry.

My soul is nasty at the bottom. Leftover residue remains there just like my coffee cup.

And there will always be some form of grinds there until I leave this earth. Because I am never going to be a finished product, perfect all the way through.

But I do want to work to clean up the problem areas of my life. And I guess I am just writing to say that we need to kick the pedestal out from under the feet of our leaders, specifically our missionaries.

Because we are ordinary to the core my friends. And that is the sheer glory of it.