Why I Can't Seem To Wake Up

I have officially given up coffee.

It almost brings me to tears to even write that sentence, but that just reminds me that it was definitely time to let it go.

I'm not saying I'll never enjoy the occasional Pumpkin Spice Latte (Dear God, why did I quit coffee just in time for the return of Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte?)... Just that I'm determined for the quality of my day to no longer be determined by the amount of caffeine i have or have not ingested.

This decision came about during my recent trip to Memphis to see Journey. Did I mention that I got a free ticket to see Journey? Well, I did. And it was amazing. And although the brilliant vocals of Steve Perry were not able to be there, I did get to hear some pretty amazing pipes via the small Philipino man doing herkies and leaps and jumping jacks all over the stage for two hours. It was a great night :)

It was on that drive to Memphis that I started quizzing a friend of mine that is in school for speech therapy about the vocal chords. My voice has been sore for several months and I had gotten myself all worked up with worry the night before and had convinced myself that I had developed vocal nodules. I know that i do not sing correctly and i thought possibly my voice was finally fighting back. As i quizzed Cecilia she made it clear that I did not in fact have to have vocal chord surgery...but "you may want to give up drinking coffee".

That did not go over well with me.

She explained that if I came into her clinic with the same problems that they would put me on a strict no caffeine diet to cure the problem. I basically told her that there was not a chance in the world that I was going to give up coffee so my voice was just going to have to go on hurting.

The next morning we left Memphis early to get me back to church in time to do worship. After I demanded that we stop at a Starbucks on the way out of town we hit the road and nobody said much as we listened to worship music and tried to wake up. As I sat in the back seat, hands folded around my beloved drink I thought back over our conversation the day before. As i thought back through every thing that Cecilia had said I felt God ask me "If you HAD to choose between doing worship for the rest of your life or drinking coffee for the rest of your life, which would you choose?"

And I hesitated.

I knew what the obvious answer was, but the idea of giving up coffee...my comfort...every morning... made me want to die.

And it was in that moment that I knew that my love for coffee had gotten a tad out of control.

Let me make it clear that I do not believe God was asking for me to choose one over the other. But his question got me thinking as to what other comforts I may be making a priority over serving Him. It's something that I've decided to continually ask myself...to make sure there is no more of me getting in the way of more of Him.

Let's just hope that He doesn't ask me to give up reality television.