Having coffee with the girls.

                                                              “…my cup runs over.”  PSALM 23:5

    Every morning I ‘have coffee with the girls’ as I read my morning devotional and have a brief period with the Lord.  ‘…having coffee with the girls’ comes from my coffee mug which has a picture of my three daughters on it.  The picture was taken in front of Senior Frog’s in Cozumel, on ‘the daughters’ cruise. 

     Our cruise party existed only of me, my wife, Kat, and the three daughters, Goober, Woo Woo, and Bam Bam.  No in-laws or outlaws, no grand kids or great grand kids, though there are many. Shortly after our last vacation together, in the seventies, their mother and I were divorced, my fault, my loss.  I know that my absence as their Dad left holes which can never be ‘filled’ just ‘patched over’. 

     We played, prayed and ate together, discovering and exposing emotions and scars that required attention, acceptance and varying amounts of forgiveness.  Those moments were sometimes treasures and sometimes trash. There were discussions with laughter and some with tears. Some tears were tears of joy while others were tears of regret. We still refer to the cruise as “successful” in that no two or three of us threw any other one, two or three of them overboard!

          I often forget that I am not responsible for every ones success!  I cannot look into the past for broken lives and forgotten promises, but I must focus on the future and the forgiveness of my friends, my family and Our Father. Forgiveness seems to be the basis for most of our successes in almost all of our relationships.

                “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, 
                      Let not the mighty man glory in his might,

                         Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
                              But let him who glories glory in this   

                                  That he understands and knows Me,
                                      That I am the LORD    
                                          Exercising livingkindness, judgment, 
                                              And righteousness in the earth.

                                                  For in these I delight,’ says the LORD."    
                                                                                  JEREMIAH 9 : 23-24