pieces and ponderings

I’ve recently made a discovery…a discovery about my coffee pot.  I love my coffee pot (not “love,” “love” but you know what I mean)…mainly because I love coffee and my coffee pot makes coffee for me when the water is put in it and the filter with the coffee is put in it and the button is clicked to the “on” position where the little green light lights up in all its greenness.  I love seeing the little green light come on because I know that means that coffee will soon be ‘a brewing.

I don’t have a fancy coffee pot…just a $35 coffee pot bought around 7 years ago.  I love this coffee pot because it doesn’t leak water out the back like the two coffee pots that I purchased before it did, which I had to return, which is always a hassle…a hassle that occurred when I had not had my morning coffee because my coffee pot didn’t work…which makes it a worse hassle because I’m spoiled.

Anyway, I love my coffee pot when friends are coming over and I make a pot of coffee for us.  I love my coffee pot when I make coffee for my older children, who enjoy a good cup of coffee like their momma.  I love my coffee pot when I make coffee just for myself on quiet mornings.

And though I love my coffee pot and have many happy coffee memories, my coffee pot is flawed…the actual machine part doesn’t have a flaw, the carafe has the flaw.  The lip on the carafe, where you pour out the delicious brew held within, is crooked…it’s not straight…you have to hold it just right or coffee spills all over the place.  For 7 years I’ve had to hold the pot just right when pouring, so that the coffee actually makes it into my awaiting cup.  For 7 years I’ve watched as other people, who don’t know about my flawed coffee carafe, began to pour a cup of coffee only to have it flood onto the counter or floor because I forgot to warn them.

Here’s where the discovery part comes in…last week as I was holding my coffee pot after washing it, I realized that the flaw is not a result of misshapen glass, as I have thought all of these years.  The flaw is that the plastic handle wasn’t placed correctly on the glass carafe…it’s not directly opposite the lip of the glassware.  THAT is why the person attempting to pour coffee from the pot has to hold it at a bit of an angle so there is no spillage.  This was an “aha” moment for me.  I now understand my coffee pot so much better.  I now understand its flaw.

The interesting thing about me and my flawed coffee pot is that I’ve never really wanted to replace it.  I accept my coffee pot with its flaw and I’ve made the adjustment necessary to use it.  I’ve made that adjustment most every day for several years now.  As you can tell, I’m even fond of my flawed coffee pot; I don’t want to replace it.

Sometimes, I just don’t like replacing things.  Even more…a lot of times…I don’t want to be replaced.  I can struggle with a fear of being replaced…and this fear can and does spring up in all sorts of places.

Yesterday I heard a message by pastor/author John Ortberg, entitled, “The Me I Want to Be.”  What he had to say was so thought-provoking that I went and bought his book of the same title…well almost the same title…”the me I want to be…becoming God’s best version of you.”

I leafed through the book this morning, and I noticed a quote on the back of the book’s cover:  “God wants to redeem you, not exchange you.”  God wants to redeem me…not replace me?  That’s when I was reminded of my coffee pot…the flawed one…the one I don’t want to replace.  When my flaws glare at me in the face, I tend to think that my replacement is the best solution.  But God isn’t about replacing as much as He is redeeming.  And He is all about redeeming…just ask His Son.