How I was blinded by vanilla creamer

Yesterday seemed like a normal day upon it's dawning.  There were no tell tale signs it was anything other than your average Monday.  No shadowy forebodings lingered upon our rising, the sun didn't turn to black and the moon to blood.  Nothing fell from the sky and there was plenty of hot water.  How could we have known what this day would hold? How could we have had any idea it would go down in history as, would forever be known as, THE FRUITY COFFEE INCIDENT OF 2011.  (da da da dum!)

Maybe I should back up here just a little and give you a little history.  J loves his coffee.  He's not your ordinary coffee drinker.  He doesn't just go to the grocery store and buy a pound or two of coffee. No sir-ree Bob!  We have to order our coffee on line.  It comes from places like Yugoslavia or South Africa, or Venezuela or a bunch of other places I can't even pronounce, much less spell.  It all tastes the same to me, tastes like coffee.  Of course the fact that I like my coffee with as much vanilla creamer as coffee may have something to do with that.  It's just coffee.  It's sweet, it's yummy and it helps me wake up in the morning.  How can you go wrong with that?  That's right!  You can't!   J shakes his head at my immature coffee palate.  If I forget to rinse my spoon after stirring my creamer laden cup before stirring his coffee he can tell!  If I make flavored coffee the day before, despite my washing everything thoroughly, he can tell the next morning by the flavor of his coffee!  I have to say, sometimes, it makes me nuts! lol

On the day in question, however, I thought J was the one who had finally jumped the coffee bean, slow boat to java land.  I got up, made his breakfast and made our coffee just like I do every morning. (yeah, I thought I'd throw that in there just to make myself look good! lol)   J came down, took a sip of coffee and got the strangest look on his face.  "This coffee tastes fruity" he said.  Since mine tasted just like it always did (like vanilla creamer) I had no idea what he was talking about.  He insisted I taste his (shudder! no creamer, only sugar!) to see what he meant.  I really couldn't taste anything fruity, although by this time, he was looking a little fruity, if you know what I mean!  So he poured out that cup and made a fresh one with the same results.  By this time he was frustrated and running out of time so that was the end of that, or so I thought.  Several times that day J called me to complain about his coffee.  It seems the to-go cup and the thermos I fixed for him contained the same fruity coffee.  I really didn't know what to make of any of this.  I was sure it was all in his head as I surely didn't taste anything amiss.  I was getting tired of hearing about the fruity coffee and the many theories concerning it's origin.  By the time J got home from work I was so over it!  I made us a pot of coffee and, you guessed it!  He claimed, once again, it was fruity.  I yelled at suggested to him that he make his own cup of coffee this time.  He took the spoon, still wet from being rinsed off and stuck it in the sugar bowl.  When he started shouting I thought he'd found a gold nugget.  I looked at the spoon he was holding up to see a pink substance on it.  It seems the "sugar" had turned pink when it became wet.  Surfer Dude just happened to be standing there in the kitchen when this happened and I asked him if he knew anything about the "pink sugar".  He was trying really hard not to laugh when he informed us that the day before, while making kool-aid a bunch of it had spilled out into the sugar bowl.  He claims he tried to get all of it out of the sugar, but, obviously had missed some.  Obviously! lol

So in the end, J was vindicated about his fruity coffee.  He was not, in fact, two coffee beans short of a full pot.  His coffee was actually fruity.  After I stopped laughing I started thinking. (funny how that happens sometimes)  Why didn't I taste the fruity? Why did it appear to me that my coffee was the same as it had always been?  The thing is, I had never bothered to develop a discerning taste for coffee. It's simply the method by which I receive my morning vanilla flavored caffeine fix.  J, on the other hand, had taken time to savor his coffee, to distinguish the subtle nuances of flavor between the different blends, roasts and varieties.  I am so ok with that.  Just give me my vanilla caffeine and no one gets hurt.  Then I thought of something else.  (so much thinking in one day! where's the tylenol?) I began to wonder what else in my life have I covered with sweet creamer and so disguised the taste that I can't tell when something's not right?  The father of lies, our enemy, is very accomplished at sugar coating things for us.  He tells us "it's okay to hang on to that hurt a little while longer. That person meant to hurt you and by you holding on to that hurt maybe he'll see what he's done and change his ways".  You might hear him say something like "it's okay to be rude behind the wheel on Sunday morning, you don't have to really stop at that stop sign, after all, you can't be late to church. You have to teach Sunday School!"  The pureness of the voice of the Holy Spirit's conviction can be so covered with sickly sweetness we no longer hear it loud and clear as it urges us onto the straight and narrow path.  The problem is, we like the sweetness. Just think of Mary Poppins!  "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!"  To our human reasoning these little "sugar drop lies" sound right, they sound good.  But the word has something to say about our human reasoning.  Proverbs 14:12-13 tells us,

^12-13 There's a way of life that looks harmless enough;
   look again—it leads straight to hell.
Sure, those people appear to be having a good time,
   but all that laughter will end in heartbreak. (Message Bible)

I don't know about you, but, suddenly, I'm not too sure I want to be following the ways that look good to me.  I want to live so close to the Lord and know His voice so intimately that I can tell when there is the tiniest thing wrong.  I want to learn the subtle nuances of his voice so perfectly that there is no doubt when he is trying to tell me something.  I want to develop my spiritual ear in the same way J has developed his coffee palate.  If one grain of "fruitiness" drops in I want to know it!  My mind told me there was nothing fruity about that coffee, but J's strongly developed sense of taste detected even the slightest hint of it.  I'm asking God to develop my ability to sense when something is just a little "fruity", when something is just a little bit off so I can tune even more sharply into  what He is saying about any given situation.  That is my goal, to learn to listen to His voice and not to my own reasoning.

We have all recovered here and found our "new normal" in this post fruity coffee household, though we have taken corrective measures to try to prevent such a disaster from occurring again. Surfer Dude is no longer allowed to make kool-aid,  the sugar bowl has a new lid, and I'm thinking of enacting the biblical method of making coffee.  That's where J always makes it.  What?  You didn't know that was biblical?  Sure!  The word says it's "He-brews" not she-brews!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor