What's In Your Cup?

“When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink.” Exodus 15:23.

I was reading a new book yesterday called She Reads Truth. It is a very powerful book with co-authors who alternately tell their stories of heartbreak and healing. Yesterday, she described an imaginary situation where a group of women come to her home for coffee. They are each given a coffee mug and begin with small talk. She then asks them to imagine that instead of a beverage in the cup, their circumstances are in that cup. She describes the possibilities of the different sets of circumstances in that room. I began thinking of my life and the different beverages I had to swallow. One of my earliest was understanding that the vow I had made before God in marriage ended in divorce. My cup was subsequently filled with a loving marriage, and children that followed. Then one day the cup’s contents began tasting bitter as I realized that my daughter had an addiction problem. Then 8 years later my cup overflowed with the delivery of her life through sobriety which led to her own marriage and my grandchildren, one of the sweetest beverages I have ever tasted. Beverages of cancer, loss of loved ones and broken dreams followed but one thing has been in each drink…the gracious lovingkindness of the Father. My cup is certainly faded and cracked but it holds precious memories of heartbreak and comfort…sin and forgiveness...hopes dashed and dreams realized. The follow-up verse to the one at the beginning has been my experience in every season. ‘And he cried to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.’ Exodus 15:25.

What’s in your cup today? Joy and celebration…heartache and bitterness? Are you drinking the bitter waters or are you in a season of the most wonderful drink you have ever known? Whatever is in your cup God is there right beside you. He poured the drink knowing He would bring you through it and experience His best on the other side. There are things of God that we can only learn as we drink the bitter waters that bring us into deep intimacy with Him. The cup might crack but it will not shatter – trust in Him with all of your heart and always remain thankful.

“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:7.