a cassette tape, a bathtub, coffee and cookies

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Psalm 143:8 NIV

I am at the age when I want to deposit life transforming lessons into the next generation. Most are simple truths that, when embraced, changed everything for me. Today’s story is no different. It involves an old cassette tape, a bathtub, no bathtub, coffee and cookies. Oh, yeah… and prayer.

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Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. I wanted to pray. Truly… The want to was there but my flesh was weak, especially when my feathery pillow wrapped around my head and piles of comforters beckoned me to stay in bed just a little longer. Well… just a little longer turned into a whole lot longer day after day. My morning prayers continued primarily in the form of apologies for having Not prayed.

Mind you, this was rather embarrassing as I was serving full-time in the Prayer Center of our church. Prayer was my job. Literally. I was there to help facilitate prayer, yet I kept sleeping in and apologizing for Not praying. Something had to change.

We had a library in the prayer center, so I gathered every cassette that might help. (I prayed with loud groanings when having to rewind the cassette tape with a pencil because the tape player decided to eat it. If you know, you know. Younger generation, be glad you don’t know!) I digress. Call it PCTT (Post Cassette Tape Trauma). Ha…

Alas! I embarked upon one teaching that struck a chord. A well-known preacher was honest about his struggles to get out of bed for morning prayer. (I do not advise the next part of his story, although it caught my attention.) His solution was to stand on the edge of the bathtub while praying. He knew he would crash if he fell asleep, and it made him determined to stay awake. Over time, he did not need to stand on the bathtub. It was, however, his place of prayer for quite a while.

I was desperate. If it worked for him, maybe it would work for me. I got up the next morning and rubbed the crusty sleep out of my eyes. Oh my goodness…. I still remember the long dreadful enduring walk from my comfy bed to the cold hard bathtub. I stood barefoot on the edge and grabbed the wall. I must have been more wobbly than my preacher friend on the cassette tape. Needless to say, I STILL started to drift back to sleep. Crashing into the bathtub was Not something I was willing to go through. There had to be another answer.

I prayed. Lord, help me find something that can get me out of bed for prayer. The bathtub idea is Not working.

An idea came: Coffee and Cookies! This was not run of the mill coffee and cookies. It was International Coffees from the 80s that transported me to France or Germany with a spoonful of instant coffee delight. The cookies? Ah! They were Entenmann Cookies! Chocolate mint, orange, or raspberry to be exact. The only time I allowed myself to enjoy such pleasures was during early morning prayer. Period.

Every morning I had a choice. Do I get out of bed and pray, or do I go back to sleep? My first response was usually to cozy up more in bed. That’s when the next thought would confront me. If you don’t get out of bed now, you don’t get your fancy coffee and cookies. Whelp! That was that! Coffee and cookies won! Hallelujah!!!!!

It was a long term fix! Forty years later, I still get up for morning prayer with coffee and cookies. There is NO drudgery anymore. In fact, I often go to bed early because I am so eager to be with God in our morning time together.

Little did I know how this decision would be a hallmark of my life:

a simple ordinary walk with God

Morning by morning. Triumphs and failures. Faiths and doubts. Hopes and disillusionments.

God has been faithful to meet with me - and sustain me - and strengthen me - through the simplicity of daily devotion… and early morning coffee and cookies.

The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple. Isaiah 50:4 NASB 1995