About Coffee

What's your number one issue in life, Jill? Relationships. That's my answer, hands down with no hesitation. My relationship issues can be traced like tiny forks off of the main channel of a river. I can see them usually, but can never fix them without loads of sought after help. I've been accused of this or that personality disorder by more than one observing spouse, including yes, even my current spouse. I've become more and more willing to embrace the truth of these issues, whatever those truths might be, the older I get and the further I go.

I was once told that in every single family unit within the third and fourth generations of my family- the family this project is written about, there is at least one set of siblings who have not spoken to each other in decades. I have since discovered that this is a bit of an exaggeration, but the true statistics are more than attention getting. It runs in the family, as they say.

I lived with my grandfather during my high school years. It was the sound of him stirring his coffee in the mornings that would gently wake me up. Sometimes, and one time in particular that I will never forget, he came in and got me out of bed and asked me to come with him to watch an amazing sunrise that lit the entire sky above the surrounding canyons - purple and blue and gold. I would often share a little coffee with him and we'd play gin - his favorite card game. We were forever playing gin.

In those same years, I observed something going on at his "kitchen corner booth" that I wouldn't fully understand for years to come - not until family member after family member, and story after story affirmed what I had witnessed and why it had gone on in the first place. The song, "Coffee" partly reveals the story and over the next two song releases, I will be sharing this story in depth. Every family has their relational issues and for a long time I was not going to tell the "story within the story" because I felt the details wouldn't matter and that every family has their own complicated details to sort through. I didn't want people to get tangled up in our details and not be able to see into their own family details, to hopefully inspire healing and renewal. So, I was choosing to keep the story more about the general, surface debate which was seemingly about cattle. But after doing the first live show, a male audience member who is also a friend, boldly stepped up to me and said "There is more to this story and I want to know what it is Jill."

I gave him my stock answer - "Every family has details, and I'm purposely keeping the story more general." But those words he spoke continued to ring in my heart, and through much prayer I am choosing to reveal that story - the story that explains why "I would find the brothers at the booth behind billows of smoke and laughter but they'd always leave without the thing they'd all come chasing after."

I still struggle and aim to learn better and better ways of handling my relationship issues and have been led over the years to some really wise experts on the subject. This song contains a powerful solution which I call "the recipe of reconciliation." Without all four "ingredients" in the "recipe" there can be no true reconciliation in a relationship. It simply can not exist without all four present. I'll be sharing the details of that recipe, and some "card tricks" I've learned along the way, in this blog series for the song Coffee. Stay Tuned.

Much love to all,

Jill

You can listen to the song here: https://tinyurl.com/b7y2a8jj