How May I Love You Today?

I have been thinking about my job. I haven't worked in a coffee shop since about 5 years ago. I started working at a local coffee shop in town about two weeks ago now! I am loving it immensely. My favorite part is the face to face interaction I get with people on a daily basis. I couldn't remember how much I loved this part of being a Barista along with making coffee drinks. Though I am still in the training process, I think I am getting a handle of everything better. I am now ready to dive into the whole coffee training that I have not yet started. I hope maybe next week... We shall see.

Today I've been thinking about something a friend and I were talking about in relation to how Father can be seen through us, no matter what we say or do, but simply when we are who we are. I thought about that all day today when I was working. I guess I would call it being on the forefront of my mind when I had face to face interaction with people today. I had this one customer come up and order something, and I was working on the cash register (keep in mind that I am still in training mode) and I was ringing his order up and as I was totaling things up he gave me more money than what was required and it made me use my nogg'n more because I already totaled the amount in the register, and though it was petty change I was dealing with, he looked at me like I was stupid for taking so long to think about how much I should give him back! I am bad with numbers to begin with, but he just made me feel so stupid. So once I handed him the correct change, he went to go sit down. I felt him glaring at me for a while after that though. I felt very self-conscious about what I was doing. At one point, I felt like he was going to come up to me and tell me how stupid I was, though this was not apart of reality, thankfully. This event jolted my memory as well, and how there are some pretty nasty people out there who have issues and feel better about themselves by tearing others down. But I got to thinking if he would have said something about my stupidity, I would have told him this, “well, thank you, stupidity happens to be one of my strong suits.” Haha, not sure that response would have made him feel better though. Here's why. I think humility breaks down barriers and walls that we seem to build against people for whatever reason. I even do this too. And sometimes it just makes me feel like a jerk when I say or do things that makes another feel less important. When we isolate ourselves from others or put ourselves on a different level than others, we of course will feel better about who we are when we see that others are below us. Then I got to thinking about people once those walls fall down in attempt to protect their pride, and how it would be different if I too didn't have a protective response to things like this! I could look them in the eye, and have so much love for them that love would overcome all negativity responses I may have to give and instead just pour out humility and love, that way there is no tension that is building and the walls have no foundation to stay in one piece. Another thing I started think about today too was how important eye contact is when dealing with customers. They see that I am concerned for what they want to order when I am looking them directly in the eye, and in the same sense there is this human connection that happens. I hope I don't sound weird, but I hope to have a peaceful and warm quality about me that people sense Father in and through just interacting with me. I don't have to say or do anything to bring this out, but in a sense it would be like Father is bursting out of my personality and onto others. I am no longer in a position to under estimate Father's ability to be inside me and work through me with others. I sense his working in me and through me makes more of a difference than what meets the eye. There is an inner heart-met connection that is being made even with complete strangers and somehow God is in the midst of it all, loving and reaching out to people, no matter what they think of me. I even gather that Father wanted me to use that guy as an example of how far his love will go to reach people! Wrapping his love over their somewhat nastiness that will break down all the walls that are tempting to protect their heart!