How Coffee Has Changed My Life

Recently, I was sitting drinking a nice hot cup of coffee. It's the first thing I do, and I can't get anything done until I do.

I was thinking about this coffee as I was drinking it and remembered there was a time when I did not like coffee at all.

When I was young, my parents made coffee in the morning, and it was the worst coffee you could ever drink. I tried it and could not get beyond the first sip. I tried it with cream and sugar, black, cream, and sugar, but none of those ingredients enabled me to drink any of that coffee.

I couldn't understand why my parents drank that coffee in the morning. It didn't make sense to me, but then a lot of things my parents did, made no sense at the time.

My father had to have a cup of coffee just before he left for work. He also took a thermos of coffee to work. It never made sense to me.

It wasn't until many years later that I realized why that coffee was so terrible.

After graduating high school, I went to a Bible college where I met the future Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. My life changed in so many ways that it would take a series of books to explain them all.

The one thing that really changed my life had to do with coffee.

Up until this point in my life, I never drank coffee. When I went out with friends to a restaurant, I was the only one who did not order coffee.

I didn't notice until we were married that The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage was highly addicted to coffee. I don't know how I missed that before we married, but I did.

After we were married, one of the first things she bought was a coffee maker. That was the first time I really saw a genuine coffee maker.

Every morning, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage would make coffee. The smell of that coffee filled the little apartment we lived in then. It was an aroma I had never smelled before, and I just couldn't quite place it.

On our first morning in our apartment, she said, "How do you like your coffee?"

I looked at her, smiled and replied, "I like my coffee in the coffee pot."

She didn't understand what I was saying, but she let it go.

Several weeks later, I began to think through this coffee business. What puzzled me was why her coffee smelled so much better than I remember my parent’s coffee.

I didn't address it because it wasn't necessary. But as the days and weeks went by, I soon became addicted to the aroma of that fresh coffee in the morning. I tried to figure out what the difference was between her coffee and my parent's coffee.

One morning, as she made her coffee, she said, "Why don't you try some of my coffee this morning? I think you just might like it."

It took me several weeks to accept her invitation, but I finally agreed to have a cup of coffee.

"Do you want cream and sugar in your coffee?" I agreed, so she fixed my coffee and brought it to me.

I smelled the coffee, which smelled so wonderful that I couldn't believe it was coffee. After looking at the coffee for a while, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage said, "Are you going to taste it or not?"

Looking at her and smiling, I nodded and took my first sip of real coffee. It was the most wonderful sip I've ever had. I responded, "This is wonderful."

"See," she replied, "I knew you would like it."

It didn't take long for me to drink that first cup of genuine coffee. My wife offered to get me another cup of coffee, and I did not stop her.

When she brought the coffee back, I looked at her and said, "Why is this coffee so much better than the coffee my parents made?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, "maybe your parents were making instant coffee. There's a great difference between instant coffee and real coffee."

I looked at her for a while and remembered those days when I lived at home. When my parents got up early in the morning, my mother would heat water on the stove, put instant coffee in both their cups, and then pour the hot water into each cup. I did not realize at the time that they were not drinking real coffee.

I started giggling, and my wife said, "What are you giggling about?"

With a huge smile on my face, I looked at her, raised my coffee cup, and said, "This, my dear, is the real thing."

From then on, I have enjoyed many cups of real coffee daily. It has wonderfully changed my life.

Thinking on this I was reminded of a scripture, “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Many misquote this verse. But to know God’s word is to know the truth which will set you free from all hypocrisy. I want the real truth not some artificial truth.