I went back to the store the next time I had time and I
asked the man who works there as a manager if there was anything still left
around from that maker. He said he’d keep an eye out for it, and he was really
extra helpful by looking up the part online for me. He found some listed on
different websites, and gave me the name of the part so I could do my own
searching. It’s called a porta filter, and so I started looking online for
those. I found a few for different products, but not the maker that I had. I
contacted the company that made my maker, and they no longer made that model
and they tried to sell me a new maker. They offered me a discount on a new one,
but their makers cost upwards of $100, so that wasn’t going to happen. I had
bought mine at the Salvation Army for $9.99, and I was going to figure this out
somehow because I had asked God before I bought it and the answer came back to go
ahead, so I knew there was a solution coming from somewhere.
There’s an online group I belong to that asks me questions
about different technology and gadgets, which is very funny in and of itself
because I had to qualify to belong to this group and I was honest in my answers
to their questionnaire. I am so not into technology – I appreciate it, but I
like to keep things simple. I don’t own a tv, my cell phone makes and takes
calls and that’s it. I still have a land line, I don’t have an air conditioner,
my stove is an old one and I like it that way. But for some reason this online
forum invited me to join their group, and every week I answer questions about
new technology, and for the time that I spend which is minimal, they give me a
$15 gift card from Amazon every month. So I went on Amazon to search for the
part for my espresso maker, and I found one for another brand that was not
mine. It’s hard to know if any of these things would work together because the
dimensions are often not given. So I went to a few stores and looked at makers,
brought the part that needed to have the porta filter fit into it, made a few
tests and it seemed like they’re pretty interchangeable so I took a chance and
ordered the one from Amazon and it worked.
When I first made my coffee in the maker, and tried to steam
the milk, not much of anything happened. A little steam came out, but not
enough to make it frothy or even warm. That happens sometimes with makers like
that – that’s often why people get rid of them – so I figured that maybe I’d
just have to be happy with having the espresso maker part working. I didn’t use
it all the time anyway – I’ve made espresso for years in a stainless steel stove
top maker I have – but I’d use this electric one on weekends and days off for a
treat. I don’t always have milk either because prices have gone so high and I
don’t buy it unless I find it on a really good sale, so steaming the milk wasn’t
really an issue, though in the back of my mind I kept thinking that if God told
me to go ahead and buy this thing, there must be something He was planning to
do.
Last week I found some really good organic milk on sale – I don’t
always buy organic, but if it’s on a great sale like this one I will. When I
was making my coffee in the electric maker one day, I tried to steam the milk
and all of a sudden the steamer attachment was working. I hadn’t done anything
special and I hadn’t changed anything. I just tried it one day and the blockage or whatever
was holding it back was gone.
The Lord started speaking to me then, about why that
happened. I know it may sound strange that He’d use this experience to talk to
me about something much more profound, but He does that all the time with me. He’ll
use the most ordinary things to reveal the extraordinary. What He started
talking to me about is that the espresso maker represented some other areas in
my life where I had been experiencing blocks and frustrations, that when we
give up when those blocks and frustrations come, we are not allowing for the
miracle of what He can do to break through those blocks and release the
blessing. He spoke to me about what He had led me to do through the months
since I bought the maker. When I discovered that the filter basket was missing I
tried one thing and then another, going where He led me to go to do the things
He led me to do, not giving up but continuing to rely on Him for the solution. Then
when the steamer didn’t work, I went about my business, enjoyed the coffee as I
could, but didn’t stop trying to use the steamer whenever I had the milk to use
with it. And then one day all of a sudden the blockage was gone and now I can have
steamed milk for my espresso. It was as simple and profound as that – one day
it was blocked and the next day the block was gone. I never would have known if
I had given up and stopped trying.
I knew there was a scripture about the Lord of the
Breakthrough, and when I looked up those words, I found a sermon by Philip Harrelson
on 2 Samuel 5:17-21, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-lord-of-the-breakthrough-philip-harrelson-sermon-on-david-131605.asp?Page=1.
He speaks about the anointing on David’s life to be King of Israel and he has
many great things to say, but the one that I heard most clearly in my own
spirit was this, “But often after that first anointing, we have to plod the
weary path of preparation for God to use us in His Kingdom. Time spent waiting
for advancement or deliverance often seems like lost time. Men forget that
preparation is demanded for all promotions.” He talks about the trials David
faced, and uses 2 Samuel 5:10 to tell us “the answer to what made David successful
is found in verse 10. ‘And David went on and grew great, and the Lord God of
Hosts was with him.’” Philip Harrelson continues, “Those words are short but
the meaning is without limit. David was a persistent man . . . . . He went on.
It is the man who steadfastly goes on, who enters a city and clears a space for
himself. Great men are defined by: Walking the paths of righteousness. The strength
of their prayers. Commitment to serving others. Stumbling blocks becoming
stepping stones. Gaining power from seeming set-backs. Seeking God rather than
position. There is something about a man who just “goes on.” He “goes on”
despite his circumstances. He “goes on” despite his trials. He “goes on”
despite being in the minority.”
Earlier in the sermon, Philip Harrelson wrote, “Has the
world mocked you? Has the world hurled defiance at the way you live? Has the
world said that men cannot serve God in modern times? Has the devil not whispered
in your ear to give up and quit?” The answer to those questions is a big yes
every day of my life. There are times that it seems impossible to go on because
there are always those things and people that rise up to oppose my living my
life and doing those things in the way that I know God has called me to. There
are blocks to so much that God has called me to do, sometimes in the form of other
people, sometimes in the form of my own weaknesses and emotions and feelings of
lack. But what God was speaking to me through an espresso maker of all things
is that those blocks can be released in a moment of time. They are there one
moment and gone the next, and the only difference is in going on and continuing
in spite of the blocks.
There is often a feeling that God has forgotten about us
when we are experiencing times when we feel blocked, but what Philip Harrelson
reminded me of is that it is in those times that God is preparing us for our
victory. Instead of being a time of wasted time, it is a time of preparation, a
time when we can seek God more because it is only with His help and strength
and sustenance that we can keep going on. And it is in that act of going on
that the anointing comes. Philip Harrelson writes, “Too often we want the
anointing but no battle. Or we want the battle without the anointing, but we
must understand that both of them must come together and work together.”
A few years ago a man I met told me he had a word for me
from Psalm 23:5, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.” He wanted me to know that it is
only in that time of struggle and trial that the anointing comes. It is when we
are in the presence of our enemies – those people and things that rise against
the will of God in our lives to try to make us back down and give up and give
in – it is in the presence of those things and people where we feel the weakest
that the power and anointing of God can fill our lives to overflowing. It is in those times when we feel that we cannot go on, when everything around us including own emotions is telling us to quit, it is then that we can see the glory of God and watch the Lord of the Breakthrough make a way where there was none before.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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