Coffee Goals for 2015

So...as anyone who knows me, knows, coffee is a very important staple to a happy Darla...
This year one of my goals for 2015 is to try many coffees from around the world. From my own living room :)

Here's the list:

If you can't see it properly, find it at this link... http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/lets-explore-the-world-delicious-coffee.html

And here's the first one I'm trying:

Cafe Bombon originally from Spain. Equal parts of sweetened condensed milk and espresso. Yum!

#iheartcoffee 

Niche: Where I Belong

Niche: (n) the status of an organism within its environment and community

The definition for niche has been imprinted in the back of my brain since Grade 8 Science class,back when I could read text once and literally retain it forever. Oh to have that brain back. But side track...

This past week, The Grove featured a week on the word niche. You can check out their posts and other featured posts here http://velvetashes.com/have-you-seen-january-18-2015/

I've been reading these posts all week, a hard lump growing on the inside of my chest, making it hard to swallow, hard to breathe.

Niche has to do with belonging, interacting, community. Environment.

What a word. And what a not definition of my life. Since I graduated almost 8 (where has the time gone????) years ago, I have lived in 4 different communities, spanning 2 Canadian provinces and one South Pacific nation. I have spent time in (rough estimate) 7 countries and interacted with numerous church bodies and people from literally all around the world.

In the past 8 months of being back in my home community, I've struggled to drive on the correct side of the road, know when doors are locked or unlocked, and how to turn on light switches. I've struggled to connect in church, with old friends, and how to make new friends. Relationships are different, activities are different, language is different. Summer was cold and now with the advent of ice and snow, shoes are difficult. Walking on ice and snow is especially difficult.

Please don't get me wrong. I love being right where God places me, and being in northern Alberta, is not something I regret. Even with the difficulties, or maybe even because of the difficulties, I laugh everyday, multiple times a day. God has given me an extra measure of joy for this season and my relationships are fuller and richer because of it.

But niche. Niche is hard. Where do I actually belong? Who is actually my family? Which church am I part of? I never imagined myself asking these questions. I always knew who I was and where I fit. Belonging was never something I questioned.

Early Friday morning as I was praying about this, crying about these issues, telling God I didn't know if I would ever have a home in the true sense of the word again, He spoke to me softly. I am your niche. Your belonging is in Me.

And slowly, over the past few days, that has begun to sink in. I belong in Christ. At His feet, I have home, family, belonging. His heart envelopes and engulfs who I am, where I will go, who I will encounter and what I will become.

I hear His whispers in every situation, and every time my compass looks like it will begin pointing the wrong direction, He points it back to Himself. In my search for belonging, in the midst of identity crisis , and the questions I have about my future, He is my niche. God is the One who creates my environment, my community, and He is the One who ordains how I act and interact within it.

I am living a life where my community is always going to be re-defined. One day, I'll return to living cross-culturally, and everything will be new again. There will always be new people and new situations to expand my life, my needs, my way of thinking, and I will always be changing in a direction opposite to the way my birth community is changing. It's the life I have chosen.

But if I can keep this one thing in mind, that God is where I belong. I think I'll be ok. My identity and my worth is found in Him, not on externals.

Do you struggle with belonging? Can you find your place at the feet of Christ?

Brave

A few weeks ago, Velvet Ashes, a blogging community I follow, featured a week of Bravery. What does it mean to be brave?

A lot of people think that I am brave. I left a small town and I moved across the world, to a country where I didn't know anyone.

The truth is, that wasn't bravery. That was sheer, not thinking, not considering, not even realizing the extent of what could actually happen or how my life could change.

I've been thinking about the women around me that are truly brave.

Like, my mom...My mom is brave. My mom has seen three daughters travel around the world, through storms and airports and sickness and other people becoming family. My mom has gone through little to no communication for weeks and months on end, not sure if her daughters were safe. She's seen her other children grow up, spread their wings, make wrong choices and right choices, learning how to let go and surrender of her own flesh and blood. My mom is brave.

My sisters are brave. They've grown up, traveled, met people, blazed trails: across the world and at home, in relationships and friendships.

My friends are brave. They've married, given birth, are learning to parent. Some of them have said good-bye to children, wept over graves. They've learned vulnerability.

Other friends have left my hometown, made lives for themselves in the city, They've left in order to free their personalities from the confines of conformity and expectation.

Others, have followed their soul cries, emotions bleeding into the hearts of Africa, Asia, South & Central America, the South Pacific.

I have aunts, cousins, friends, myriads of women in my life that are brave every day. Free just to be themselves, no pretense. Women who bloom under trials and cares, who choose to live beautifully in a hard-pressed world, who choose to give of themselves every day for the good of others.

These women are the women I commend for their bravery. These women are the ones I look up to every day, young and old alike, there beauty and their grace in a fallen world, astound me, and draw me closer to Christ.

Because no matter how difficult life is, they choose to continue going forward. They choose to not give up. They choose to continue reflecting the face of Christ to the lost and broken world around them.

Who are the brave in your life?