Hello, I’m January
Inspiration and thoughts on God and faith, written by a simple human, navigating life through the messy and sometimes chaotic.
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Just buy the coffee
There are days I wonder if anyone cares to notice. Cares to notice that there is a world past the one they live in. Cares that the person in front of them with the plastered on smile. With that “fake face” on, as I call it, is really just dying to go home and pretend the outside world and all it’s demands don’t exist.
I care. Because I am that person on too many days to count.
I wonder if I’m seen. Or if anyone will care to see past the small scowl I may have while walking into the church parking lot…because “fake face” isn’t working this morning. Because I am coming in this morning after yelling at my kids.
Because that heated discussion now continues in the church cafe with no one caring to notice. Or so it seems.
Because after months of caring for the least of these, I was now sitting across from someone who was telling me I still wasn’t trusted. Why? I couldn’t deliver promises I knew I just couldn’t keep.
Because I now sat, knowing I had to “fake face” my way through something I had to hide for over a year. Not say anything. Sit back and stay silent. Again.
There have been a number of days with small instances like this, but on this day I went home a ball of bitterness, anger, and loads of regrets. I exploded on anyone and everyone in sight.
The next day. I couldn’t get out of bed. My body had just given up. I was tired of fighting Satan. I was sick from fighting him, and all his adversaries. Would anyone have known this? No. More than likely, no.
Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others. 1 Corinthian 10:24, NLT
Really, we all look past the hurting. The down-trodden. The sullen. The heartbroken. Because we are focused on our own good. We all do it.
But what if we just bought someone a coffee? What exactly do I mean?
Well, after that battle with my anger. Satan. And my self-professed sabbath, I was determined to have a good day after.
But then the dog wet on the carpet. I couldn’t do anything with my hair. I got stuck in traffic. And I was late for work…again. Small things, but all things to keep from me focusing on the good.
But then someone bought my coffee.
It seemed so simple.
A stranger. In front of me in Starbucks (because I’m never too late for Starbucks), and the sweet sound of- “The person in front of you paid for your drink.”
The person in front of me.
I’m just a random stranger in a coffee drive-through.
Or was I?
No. I was an opportunity to be seen. For someone to look outside themselves, and be kind. Do good.
It doesn’t happen often. This looking outside ourselves. This seeing. The going outside of one’s own world to brighten someone else’s.
With a coffee.
Case in point…
Later, the devil must have decided he wasn’t going to take defeat lightly. He got at my head again. Started nagging me. In the mirror. Because that’s where he tries to get at many of us. I looked down and noticed you could see through my dress. Though no one had bothered to tell me. They commented on said dress, but never helped a girl out.
But I remembered this. Though right now…I could only see my underpants, and thought all kinds of things. And wondered what others thought, you know-cuz Satan; I remembered this: someone was kind enough to buy my coffee.
So, moral of this story:
Never, EVER let a fellow woman walk around with her unmentionables showing. It’s ok to pull her to the side and whisper it in her ear. Please! Help a girl out!
Do some good, and just buy someone a coffee. It may just make someone feel a little bit more seen.
And you’ll be looking past yourself to do someone else some good.
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WWJD: Pray for those who hurt you
I went to therapy the other day. I am not too proud to admit that I am a Christian. A mental health provider. A pastor. And I am in therapy. I can imagine that during this time of upheaval and isolation many people are. As a therapist, I can attest to the growing numbers. So yes, I am one of those numbers. I am also a diligent believer in its ability to bring about change if one does their part in the process.
As I sat in my session, discussing past hurts that played a part in my anxiety when starting new things, my therapist challenged me to pray for those who hurt me. This isn’t a new concept.
In fact, it’s biblical. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:44, “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!”
The very next morning I woke up, made my coffee, and sat down. I opened my devotional, and then I saw it. A call to live at peace with everyone, and a prayer to release those for which we were still seeking justice for our hurts. The days assignment even requested that we list them by name.
So I did. I pulled out my pen. I wrote down this verse: Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, but leave room for God’s wrath. Romans 12:17-19
And then I wrote down this prayer: Right now, by faith, I release every person from whom I feel entitled to demand justice. I release……
And after that blank, I wrote down the names of those for which I was still holding onto bitterness. The names of those who still caused me grief every time I simply heard their name. The names of those who I knew had caused this adult “first day of school” anxiety. And I asked God to bless them, and to change their ways so that they would hurt no one else any longer in the ways I had been hurt. And I asked that they would one day know Him as their own.
It wasn’t easy. And it didn’t make my day easier. I still walked into that new school anxious. I cried all the way to work actually. But my meeting went well. I know that I may not find favor with everyone, for some I’m just not meant to. It’s ok, but with God I have, and I will be immensely blessed for putting aside the bitterness I feel for those who have chosen to take advantage or hurt me.
Maybe today you are holding onto something that someone has done to you. Maybe it even makes you anxious to walk into new rooms, too. I encourage you to try what I did above. Make a list. Write out those names and surrender them to God. Then pray a blessing of His favor over them.
It’s not easy, but it’s exactly what Jesus would do.
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He will bless you (and them) through it
I’m going to touch on something today I have not wanted to talk about. I’ve tried to shove it down it down deep where I hoped it wouldn’t find me, but God knows my heart. He searches it daily. And He’s relentless in the things He wants you to examine, and even at times the things He wants you to speak into existence. To breathe life into someone else who may need to hear of His hope in the midst of what you think is no longer possible.
He tells us when it’s just simply time. And it’s time.
I don’t like new things. I don’t like new places. I don’t like meeting new people. What this means is that I often hold tightly to the old things, and the old people of those old places. The places I may not have wanted to leave.
New things. New people. New places. They bring me anxiety. They cause me to think only of the things that are uncertain, and the one thing that becomes certain: At some point these people. These things. This place. It. They. This. Will be gone, too.
Those feelings are borne from the painful and misunderstood cycle of complicated grief. And I know that all too well.
But here’s the thing about grief we don’t talk about.
Grief for the things and people that are still very much alive.
Oh, we talk about grief. We talk about it all the time. See we are acquainted with grief in the ways of death. When a loved one dies, we can commiserate, we can empathize, we can acquaint ourselves with that level of grief. Someone loses someone to death and we can understand why they are angry, sad, confused for months and years to come. We offer ourselves to them to support and encourage. We get it.
But what about other loss. The loss of a job. The loss of a marriage, relationship. The loss of a person due to complicated circumstances…a pandemic for goodness sakes. The loss of a sibling to the system. Over and over. The loss of a person who is very much alive.
We grieve, too. Sometimes over and over. But often without anyone acquainted with that kind of grief. With the need to hold on so tightly as to not have to feel that kind of sorrow again and again. Or detach so greatly as not to dare get hurt.
My way of dealing with this complicated grief? I hold onto people. Probably longer than I should. Longer past their expiration date. But sometimes I give up on them before their prime, too. It takes someone who desires to support you to really understand why you are carrying the baggage in the first place.
And that’s where the time to tell the story of the “blessing” begins
I had started this particular employment journey with a heavy heart. I had vowed not to get involved. Not to get too close. Not to go too far. Because of loss.
And someone could sense this. Someone saw the power struggle. The woman vowing not to do a thing about it. And all he did was tell me this: “Numbers 6:24-26. Pray that. Over he and his family. I know you haven’t laid that burden down. So pray that.“
I was reluctant. I didn’t really know if it would help. But I did. For weeks. Months. Years. That prayer eventually became a song that would make me cry. I started praying it for other people and families. The song became one of my favorites. I had seen changes, in little bitty small ways, and I believed in His blessings.
Until one day that prayer became too much for me to handle. And I stopped. Stopped praying for blessings. That song made me weep more than I could stand, and I hated singing it, hearing it, and I flipped it off every time it came on the radio. I couldn’t see any of those blessings, and I didn’t want to be reminded of those things for which I was grieving.
Loss. It’s not felt. Experienced. Or explained by anyone in the same way.
But it’s still a loss.
Blessings. May not come when we expect them. May not be seen. May not be what we even want to pray for some days, but they come just the same.
See, we pray those verses in Numbers. And we sing that song, but do we understand the context of what any of what God was asking Moses and Aaron to do meant?
God instructs Moses to have Aaron give this very message to the Israelites, a message given to them. A blessing spoken to them. A promise provided to them right before they were to enter into a time of hardship. That time of hardship, you ask? The wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. This blessing was to serve as a reminder that God’s presence was before them, beside them, and behind them. In their coming and their going. In the morning and the evening.
I have not known of the hardship of wandering in the wilderness, but I have known hardship. I have have also known the kind of grief that walks in and out of doors of varying kinds for the better part of close to 30 years. But I also know of His blessings. Some I have seen, and some I have yet to see. Some I may have to wait to see, and some I may never see. The never seen? Well, we will get to those blessings next week. This week?
‘May the Lord bless you
and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you his favor
and give you his peace.’ Number 6:24-26, NLTAnd just as God promised to Aaron, when spoken in His name, He will bless them.
I do not own the rights to this video, music, or song.
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Leaving the shame behind
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1
We had started over. My husband and I that is, in many ways. But in this case, what I am talking about is a devotional we had started afresh. The devotion to intentionally read. One I mentioned a while back here.
Which means we started from the very beginning. And so on this night, we had gotten to the story of the woman caught in adultery again. Here I sat, wanting to skip it again.
“We can’t do it halfway this time around. Just read it.”
And so I did. About her being drug into the square to be stoned. About the man who was no where to be found. About the people who had to drop their stones because they had sins of their own. About the Jesus who told her to “Go. Sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)
This time as we answered the questions I didn’t have the same reaction as last time. I had worked out that whole “where was the man” question, and it all boiled down to good ‘ole fashioned shame.
Here’s the thing about shame. It’s a spiral. It’s born of our sin, and sometimes we can feel shame because the devil comes back to remind us of sins for which we have been forgiven. We allow those thoughts and the voice of that liar to be the loudest and we forget what Jesus did to relieve of us that condemnation. We spiral back into feelings of worthlessness. Shame begins to defeat us.
I knew, because I had worked through some things, that shame had no place here. Shame had no place in the heart of the one the Father had redeemed. It needed to be left behind.
And the story isn’t over, if the story isn’t good
A failure’s never final when the Father is in the room. Cory Asbury, “The Father’s House“The question at the end of that chapter was answered so differently this time because I was no longer allowing Satan to let shame have a grip on me. The question? “What from this story brings you hope?” See, when I came into my Father’s House, and I walked to the altar for the first time, I asked for forgiveness, and He wiped the slate clean. He didn’t hold my sins over my head like the world did. He didn’t constantly berate me with them the way Satan had.
And, the truth is…there were times I had to come back to that altar over and over because of my own shortcomings and failures, but He didn’t turn me away. He didn’t berate me. He didn’t hold me in contempt, or pick up any stones. He welcomed me. He gave me the chances I needed to get it right.
I realized in reading this story over again, that the shame the devil uses against us, was nailed to a cross. It lays at the altar. It is laid down when we lay our burdens down for Him to carry. It is thrown into the fire when we ask for His forgiveness.
When we enter His house, we leave our shame behind.
When we enter His house, there are no stones that can be thrown.
When we enter His house, we are always welcomed by Him with love.
I do not own rights to music, lyrics, or video.
About Me
I am January! Wife, mother, meemaw, pastor, and mental health provider who makes it through the day with my coffee, my journal, and my God; and I am also on some days a hot mess. A simple human, navigating life through the messy and sometimes chaotic.
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