B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

Some people just don’t like coffee.  As a barista, coffee shop owner, and lover of coffee this cold hard truth is hard to swallow.  Yet I am faced with the reality everyday, that not everyone likes coffee.  My own wife is a non-coffee drinker.  I’ve tried to sweeten it, lighten it, even disguise it in small doses, but she’s smarter than that.  There’s just no getting around the fact that she doesn’t like coffee.  Sadly, nothing I can do will change her opinion.

There’s another cold hard truth that I’ve been reminded of recently.  Not everybody likes me.  Now I know I have my quirks and issues.  But I would like to think that I’m a pretty likable guy.  But in this world of 6 Billion people, there’s bound to be a fair number that simply do not, or would not like me.  This cold hard truth is hard to swallow.  Still it is, what it is.  I recently received a five page, single spaced letter from a lady who got really mad at me a long time ago for something I had assumed had long since died and gone away.  No, not so much.  It took all of that paper, not to mention the time to look up all the scriptures that she used, to tell me – I don’t like you.   Now I have a clear conscience where this lady is concerned, so her ranting letter phased me very little.  Still, there have been people, that I just couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they didn’t like me.  Now to my face they would be nice, even claim to be my friend, but I knew deep down in my “knower” that they just didn’t like me. That’s a tough one.

Thing is, I just have to learn to be okay with it.  This isn’t easy for a recovering people pleaser like myself.  But the other night while singing an age old song to my little boy before  he went to sleep, I was reminded of the one truth that makes all other realities easier to accept; Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

So, I’m learning to accept that like a delicious cup of coffee, some people just aren’t going to like me.  Ill be okay with that, cause I know who does, and more than that He loves me.

Think I’ll go drink a cup of coffee now.