The Coffee Bean Miracle

So this is the story. When I was in the recording studio last week, I was carrying a bag around with all my stuff, including a tin of coffee beans. Most days I was so busy I didn't bother with a coffee, I have a pot of tea in the morning and always had a bottle of water in the studio, was that busy and energized, didn't need caffeine, plus it was really hot weather.

But on the thursday I spent all day battling with just one song, trying to get a key change right into a key that's a challenge to play in, and just couldn't get it right despite multiple takes, a really frustrating day. In the end played the song in a completely different key by accident and the key change was easy. Frustrating to be paying for a day in a studio but the day was more of a workshop than a recording session, can't really afford that but hey.

So in the afternoon I needed a coffee, but had left my tin of coffee beans back at my lodgings. However, the first day when I did have the tin of coffee beans, as it was rattling around in my bag, the tin lid had become loosened and a load of beans had come out of the tin and were rolling around in the bottom of the bag. So I emptied the bag, and gathered up the loose beans, and it was exactly enough to make a cup of coffee - they had a cafetiere at the studio. I mean they offered me instant coffee, but I'm a coffee snob - instant coffee is basically chemical waste...!! So on a normal day you might just dismiss this as a happy chance, a coincidence. But caught up as I was in writing and recording spiritual songs, I just saw God's hand in this... he knew I'd want a proper coffee that afternoon. He knew I'd not have my tin of coffee beans with me that day. So although I was irritated the previous day that the lid had come off the tin and beans had spilled out and were rattling around in the bottom of my bag, a waste of good coffee beans I thought, as it turned out, the loose beans in my bag were just enough to make the coffee I wanted. I really was in awe of how God had set that up. I've been inspired by a friend who lives believing that everything that happens to her in her day is God directing everything for a reason. Like everyone else, I love that verse Jeremiah 29v11 'For I know the plans I have for you says the lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future'. I always just thought that meant God had a plan for my future. But it never occurred to me that God had a plan for me TODAY and everyday... that if I give him my schedule, he really will direct my steps hour by hour, minute by minute...!! That blew my mind. As I said to Mark and Jess in the studio, "I've not met this God, that plans and takes care of the smallest details of my life", like tipping just enough beans out of my coffee tin one day to ensure I had enough beans to make a coffee the following day. (I have a portable manual coffee bean grinder I take on my travels, and an electric one at home).   

This chimes with a revelation in the last couple of months... I've been travelling around Ireland having gone there for a conference, and just really conscious of God being with me on a daily basis, whereas when I'm at home I just fall into routines, and there's been a lot of crap going on with divorce, other court proceedings, and sure God's helped with all of those, but I've let it get to me, and felt like I'm on my own on a day to day basis... sure I pray and listen to scripture (prefer that to reading with the brain injury which gives me brain fog, I struggle to think straight). In my normal routine, it's like Sunday is 'God day' and the rest of the week I'm on my own, even if I'm trying to do spiritual stuff. So... those coffee beans have changed my life! 

Maybe rather than just falling into my 'default' schedule, as part of my daily prayers I need to submit my agenda/schedule to God for him to plan/direct... I mean, how can he direct my future if I'm not allowing him to direct my every day?