A Day in the Life of a Woman Who Loves Jesus and Also Needs Coffee

Let me be honest with you right up front.

I do not have a morning devotional. I have been meaning to start one for approximately three years. Every night I think tomorrow morning I will wake up, open my Bible, pray with intention, and start the day covered in scripture and peace.

Then 6:30 arrives and I brush my teeth instead.

This is my life. And I have decided God is not surprised by any of it.

6:30 a.m. — The Non-Negotiables

There are exactly two things that happen every single morning without exception. I brush my teeth and I make my coffee.

Hot coffee. Sugar free salted caramel. Skim milk.

I am not joking when I say this cup is load bearing. It is holding up the entire morning. Before the coffee I am a woman with good intentions and limited capacity. After the coffee I am someone God can actually work with.

I keep telling myself I will add a devotional to this part of the morning. Sit quietly, Bible open, journal beside me, soft light coming through the window like a Pinterest post about faith.

Instead I drink my coffee standing at the kitchen counter checking my phone.

But here is what I have learned — God meets me at the kitchen counter too. He is not waiting for me to get my routine together before He shows up. He is already there in the ordinary, in the steam rising off the mug, in the quiet before everything begins.

I am still working on the devotional. He is still working on me. We are both patient.

7:00 a.m. — Mom

My mother is 93 years old. Some mornings I drive to her house. Some mornings I wake up already there, having spent the night so she would not be alone.

Either way the morning begins the same — her medicine, her breakfast, her eyes finding mine across the kitchen and something passing between us that does not need words.

She has good days and harder days. Days where her memory holds and days where it slips like sand through her hands. On those days I pray for grace — not the big dramatic kind but the quiet everyday kind that lets me smile instead of cry, that helps me find the humor in a moment that could otherwise break your heart.

I know God has me here for a reason. I do not always understand the reason. But I know it.

I am also deeply, genuinely thankful for my brothers and sister who carry this with me. Caregiving was not meant to be done alone and I am not doing it alone. That is its own kind of answered prayer.

8:00 a.m. — Working Remotely (In Theory)

I log on. I check my meetings. I look at my list.

Working remotely sounds peaceful until I tell you what remote actually means in my life. It means my office is wherever I am — which is wherever mom needs me — which is sometimes the kitchen, sometimes the living room, sometimes standing in the hallway holding a phone to my ear while simultaneously locating someone's glasses.

I am on calls. I am answering emails. I am also up and down approximately four hundred times because that is what caregiving looks like woven into a workday.

What I have discovered is that this is actually excellent training in the spiritual discipline of interruption. God has been trying to teach me for years that my plans are more like suggestions. Working remotely while caring for a 93 year old has finished that lesson thoroughly.

10:00 a.m. — The Phone Calls Begin

My daughter calls.

She always has something going on. Something with herself. Something with the kids. Something that needs my full attention right in the middle of whatever I am doing at work. I step away from my desk, find a quiet corner, and listen — because that is what mothers do and I would not trade it.

Then the grandkids call.

Oh the grandkids.

They call to fill me in on their day. What happened at school. What someone said. What they are thinking about. What they had for lunch. These calls are the highlight of my entire day disguised as interruptions. I stop everything for them every single time.

Somewhere in here God is showing me what it looks like to be fully present. I did not sign up for this lesson but I am taking it anyway.

3:00 p.m. — The Second Coffee

This is sacred.

Iced latte. Sugar free salted caramel. Skim milk.

I sign off from work, go to the coffee shop, and sit with my husband. This is our time — quiet and ordinary and exactly what I need by 3:00 in the afternoon. We talk about nothing important and everything that matters. We drink our coffee. We exist in the same space without an agenda.

I think this is what rest is supposed to feel like. Not the absence of everything but the presence of the right things.

Late Afternoon — The Dogs

We walk the dogs.

This is the part of the day where I breathe. Where the to do list falls away and it is just movement and air and my husband beside me and whatever the late afternoon light is doing to the trees.

I do not have a formal prayer time. But I think this might be it. Moving through the world at a slower pace, noticing things, feeling grateful for ordinary beauty.

God speaks in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it is scripture. Sometimes it is a sermon. Sometimes it is the late afternoon light on a Tuesday when you are walking your dogs and you realize that somehow, in the middle of all of it, you are okay.

Evening

The day winds down the way it started — without a formal routine, without a perfect schedule, without the devotional I keep meaning to start.

Just a woman who loves Jesus and needed coffee twice today and cared for her mother and showed up for her work and answered every grandkid call and walked her dogs and found grace in the spaces in between.

That is the life. Not Pinterest perfect. Not spiritually polished. Just real and full and held together by grace that I did not earn and caffeine that I absolutely did.

I am still becoming. God is still working on me.

And somewhere between the hot coffee at 6:30 and the iced latte at 3:00 — He is getting it done.

With grace,
Grace Lantern 🕯️

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