Nov 3, 2025 – Filters

Because I’ve been trying to consume more omega 3s to help my shoulder heal, I have been eating more salmon and whatever other seafood has been on sale at the grocery store.  A couple or so weeks ago Don and I started having…eh-hem…some intestinal issues specifically after eating tilapia. When it continued week after week for me (I hadn’t checked in with Don about his issues), I wondered if I might be overdoing the seafood or that I might have developed an allergy to it. I wondered that, until this morning, when I realized what had happened and I could hardly stop laughing, to the point of tears, while trying to tell Don about it. You see, I have this really horrible habit of laughing when people throw up (or even when they talk about it) so apparently it must apply to intestinal issues as well.

I discovered the source of our troubles this morning as I was about to make coffee. Our machine can make pods or a pot, and though I was only going to make a single cup for myself (since Don was still asleep), something prompted me to open the filter drawer. And there it was…..moldy grounds!! OMGOSH! Both pod and pot coffee pour over this filter area which means for the past few weeks or so (since the last time I made a whole pot of coffee), our pod coffee has been filtering through the old moldy grounds. Yes. I know.

I am laughing now thinking back to our conversation this morning as we voiced our questions from these past few weeks. I thought I just had lost the taste for coffee or needed to buy different flavors. I asked Don if he noticed that it wasn’t tasting good anymore and he said that’s why he’s been drinking coffee across the street (at the house he lived in before we got married that we have held onto for him to have an “office” as well as to house all of his tubas! Ha ha. Plus, it’s paid for.) He said his “situation” had gotten better until (again, I’m laughing) Sat when I made him a to-go cup of coffee for his drive to JSU and then to Chattanooga (for a gig with the 1920s band he’s in). I laughed, and cried, so hard this morning that I would consider it exercise. It was so good for our spirits as well!

I’m sharing this rather embarrassing situation to point out something important about the small, still voice and how God, through His Holy Spirit, really does try to take care of us, if we will listen. He cares about the little details of our lives as well as the big ones. The temporary intestinal troubles might could have turned into something bad if we hadn’t stopped drinking contaminated coffee! Yes, I know I should’ve emptied that filter right after I made that pot of coffee whenever ago that I made it, but we rarely make a pot of coffee so it simply wasn’t part of my coffee-making routine. I wasn’t planning to make a pot this morning, nor were the intestinal troubles on my mind causing to me wonder what the culprit was. Something (someone) prompted me to open up that filter drawer! And I acted on it. And I didn’t make yet another cup of bad, perhaps detrimental, cup of coffee.  THAT is the kind of relationship I want to have with my heavenly Father. I want to act on His promptings sooner than later and not have so many unnecessary missteps.

The title of Joyce Meyer’s Power Thoughts today is “Be Led By The Spirt” —uhhh yep.  If you don’t yet realize that He cares about the details of our lives (what we read and what we do etc etc etc) then try to imagine that this morning-coffee-wake-up-call happened today when I would read THIS devotion which I’m almost too late to share since Nov 3 is 4.5 hours away from being done. Joyce writes, “One of the most dynamic ways to keep your joy is to allow the Holy Spirit to lead you (see Psalm 139:24.)”  This devotion is so on point that I’m just going to share the whole rest of it. “If you pray first, asking God for a plan, He will never push you into a work of the flesh. Instead, His Holy Spirit prompts, guides, and gently leads you to a place of joy; He will never manipulate or control you. If you are too consumed with your own plan, too locked into the way you think things ought to be, you won’t even hear God speak to you or recognize the promptings from Him. If you are too determined to follow your own ritualistic rules [making a pod cup of coffee without checking the pot filter cup], you can miss the gentle leadings of the Holy Spirit [clean the filter] and lose the joy [and health] God intends for you to have. It is not wrong to have a plan, but always offer your plan to God and tell Him that if He has something else in mind, you are willing to submit to Him.  “ Shall we try another devotion or let things rest here since that devotion really spoke to what I experienced today? Seriously. I didn’t have a plan for my blog today, but after we gained our composure from laughing, Don said I should write about this in the blog. What? This? Yes, this. Ok.

JC – “Every time something thwarts your plans or desires, use that as a reminder to communicate with Me.” I would add here that every morning, for a while, I knew that my coffee did not taste very good but that’s a very earthly human thing so why would I check with God about it? As I said, I’ve learned that He cares about every detail of our lives. “Talking with me blesses you and strengthens our relationship. Another benefit is that disappointments, instead of dragging you down, are transformed into opportunities for good.” Yes, like keeping you from being sick from drinking moldy coffee water. Seriously!?? I can’t be the only one in the world who has done something like this. “Begin by practicing this discipline in all the little disappointments of daily life.” Like the bad tasting coffee disappointments that you need to pay attention to so you don’t get sick. Think back to all of the ritualistic laws of the Old Testament about food. They didn’t have the prep and storage conveniences that we have now so they HAD to have rules.

I bet there’s more to read tonight but my shoulder says it has had enough. Until tomorrow……