It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect (Day 23)

#31days of Missional Meals

(A guest post by Clohe Ludwig)

It doesn't have to be extravagant. It doesn't have to be perfectly orchestrated. It doesn't even have to involve real food. Sometimes healing takes place in the midst of an impromptu coffee date, or in the simple routine of everyday life.

I had my heart broken and restored with Starbuck's Passion Tea in my hands. I admonished a brother in Christ while my fingers froze from holding Portillo's famous Chocolate Cake Shake. I've dropped mushrooms from Lou's Malnati Salad on my carpet while continuing a weekly movie date with a friend, even in the midst of incredible relational issues. I spoke love into high school girls' broken lives while accidentally burning Nestlé's Break and Bake chocolate chip cookies.

Sometimes, the best of life happens when a friend sees you in the coffee shop window and stops in to say hi. It's that moment in the grocery store when you walk by the cookie dough and buy some just in case those girls ever come over. While making food for my nephew, I was mentored incredibly by my big sister, my role model. Or in midnight McDonald's runs with my unbelieving sister, I am amazed at what truths she allowed me to speak into her life.

Real conversations, real moments, real change happens when you're together, beyond what you could have hoped or planned for.

Take life as it comes; linger in that coffee shop just a moment longer. Buy that great snack that you usually deny yourself. You never know when ministry opportunities will present themselves.  

Clohe Ludwig is a student at The Moody Bible Institute and is currently on staff with Converge Church Planting.  Frank Sinatra is her kind of man and Chicago is her kind of town.To read more of her writing visit her blog here.