How about a cup of Kunjin Western Highlands coffee from Oddly Correct in Kansas City, MO? My brother-in-law always says a good steak is done just so that a good vet could bring it back to life, and requires no sauce or added seasonings at the table. Likewise, Oddly Correct allows no sugar or milk to be added to their coffee. This coffee, from Papua New Guinea (a country I don't think we've had coffee from before), is buttery with a creamy body, toffee sweetness and ripe cherry fruitiness. Enjoy!
We continued our "Uncensored Dating" series this week by taking a deeper look at ourselves. To some extent, we all have this "compulsion for completion" - this internal desire for someone to enter our lives who will give us a meaningful identity and make us feel deeply whole.
But here's the uncensored truth: There are no shortcuts to personal growth and wholeness. If you try to complete yourself through another person before you do the hard work of cultivating strong self-esteem on your own, every relationship will eventually end with disappointment and pain. Why? Because every relationship will be an unconscious attempt to complete yourself. You see, the emptiness inside all of us is not a case of missing persons in our lives, but a case of incompleteness deep down in our own souls.
Even the best earthly relationships will fail us from time to time. Every one of us needs to feel a deep sense of personal significance. No amount of money, relationships, beauty, success, or fame can permanently satisfy that desire. People in your life are meant to share it, not be it. Only Jesus Christ can fulfill the "compulsion for completion" we're all hunting for. Only God's love can make us truly whole from the inside out.
Parent-Teen Connect
Take turns answering and discussing the following questions with your teens this week. Create meaningful conversation. Adjust questions as needed. Use one or two of these to begin a conversation. Look for teachable moments - at home, in the car, wherever. Pray and ask God to provide you opportunities to have spiritual conversations with your teens.
- Be honest, how strongly do you long for a "Mr. or Miss. Right"?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are you doing at having a strong sense of self-esteem? What are some things causing it NOT to be a 9 or 10?
- What have you tried to fill that sense of "incompleteness" deep inside yourself in the past?
- The people we love most have the capability of hurting us the deepest. They have the potential to negatively impact or affect our sense of self-worth or self-esteem. How do we prevent that from happening?
- Some of us have already experienced that kind of pain and our self-esteem has been damaged because of it. Take a moment to share that story with your teen and solicit their stories. Pain does not just go away. It takes work to face it. Talk about it and refuse to bury it.
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