Keeping My Cup Turned Up

I remember many years ago meeting at a restaurant with some friends and having the waitress ask each of us, "Would you like coffee or tea?"

Except me. Although I actually didn't want either, I wondered why I wasn't asked like the rest.

"It's because you didn't have your cup turned up," someone pointed out.

Duh. I should have known.

The turned up cup has become a metaphor for me about experiencing the love or care from others or from God that I need. Maybe it's not so much that enough care and encouragement isn't available, but that I'm not being receptive and vulnerable enough to receive it.

At some level we are all beggars with cups in hand, needing God's kind of warmth and love to fill us. That may feel like a risk, of course. What if our needs are ignored, or someone offers us something we don't care for, or that may not be the kind of love we want?

But the risk of not acknowledging our neediness is even greater. Life is too short to live it with an empty cup, or one we fail to keep turned up for refills.