Holiness That Smells Like Coffee
Updated: Oct 1
Holiness That Smells Like Coffee
We sometimes imagine holiness belongs to another world, somewhere beyond the reach of our ordinary lives. Yet perhaps heaven is nearer than we think and close enough to be touched in the bread we share, the tears we wipe away, and the small, unnoticed moments in which we love.
If holiness had a scent, I think it would be the smell of coffee in the morning - warm, comforting, real. Just coffee, in the quiet corners of our everyday lives.
Between laundry and conversations, in the humdrum of household chores, God is quietly at work, giving eternal meaning to the smallest acts of love.💮🤍💮
From Silence to Speaking
I used to think that if I wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t speak - that my own struggles somehow disqualified me from sharing what God was teaching me. I hid my words like fragile things in a drawer. I convinced myself that silence was humility, when really it was fear.
I’ve always loved words. I used to write poetry and radio scripts, and people around me knew that writing was “my thing.” But what I write now is different. I write for women who have lived enough to know that faith is rarely tidy, that some questions take years to unfold, and that grace often meets us right in the middle of the mess.
These words come from places I have lived through, wrestled with, and sometimes only understood much later. I no longer write from the other side of the story, as though I have all the answers. I speak from within it - still learning, still listening, still being shaped by grace.💮🤍💮
Not to impress, but to bless.
There’s something vulnerable about opening your heart in a world that’s quick to scroll and slow to stay. But the longer I stayed quiet, the louder the ache became.
And then I remembered Photini - the Samaritan woman. The woman with a complicated past and a scandalous thirst. She didn’t wait until she was perfect.
She ran to her town without water, breathless from the encounter, unpolished, but full of truth. And people listened. Not because she was holy, but because she was real.
Holiness That Smells Like Coffee
The Permission to Be Real
Holiness, I’ve come to understand, begins when I stop trying to hide from God.
When I let Him see the woman I really am - the woman with growing edges, unanswered questions, messy days, and an uncertain heart and discover that I am still loved, still welcomed, still held close to His heart.💮🤍💮
Just me as I am.💛
When Ordinary Things Become an Offering
While sorting through a pile of laundry, with a cup of steaming coffee sitting on top of the washing machine, I suddenly thought: Perhaps the laundry itself is not the point. Perhaps what matters is how I do it.
The task in front of me may have come from circumstances I did not choose, from the ordinary responsibilities of my life, from the people I love, from simply being where God has placed me. I can do the same thing with resistance in my heart, or I can do it with love.
I do it because I care. Because someone will wear those clean clothes. Because this, too, belongs to my life. Because sometimes God’s will comes to me disguised as something very ordinary, asking me to love Him through what is simply there to be done.
And perhaps this is the deeper meaning of surrender: receiving the circumstances of my life as the place where love can become real.
Jesus says to Alicja Lenczewska:
“The most important thing was and is your love for Me and your kindness toward people... Your surrender is the key to your freedom in Me… it is the power of who I am in you. You need to be My ray of love and peace right where you are now - at the given moment,"
„Najważniejsza była i jest miłość twoja wobec Mnie i dobroć wobec ludzi. Twoje oddanie jest kluczem twojej wolności we Mnie… jest potęgą, jaką Ja w tobie jestem. Trzeba, abyś tu, gdzie jesteś, była Moim promieniem miłości i pokoju.”
Maybe holiness is sometimes as simple as this: I am here. This is what is before me. So I will do it with love.
That means bringing Him the mess and the masterpiece, the laundry and the longing, the skipped prayers and the quiet hopes. Holiness begins when we stop hiding and start handing over.
God’s love is already reaching for you, right in the middle of your real, imperfect, everyday life. You don’t have to become someone else to receive it.
For women who’ve grown up thinking holiness is unattainable, something reserved for cloisters or canonizations - this is good news: You can be holy in the kitchen, in traffic, in grief, in motherhood, in healing.
You don’t need to be brilliant to be a light - you just need to burn.
Blessed Be the Word of God
This verse from Isaiah 50,4 has followed me for years.
“The Lord has given me a well -trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.”
My question was not whether the words are clever enough to deserve a hearing, but whether they are true enough to be spoken faithfully.
I came to feel the Word as my personal calling, whether I was writing poems for children, writing this blog, or simply speaking with people. Only when I understood this and gathered the courage did I begin to share the written words.
If God gives me a word, even if it’s wrapped in trembling, I want to give it away like warm bread - simple, nourishing, real.
Where This Meets You 💮🤍💮
Maybe today you feel small.
Maybe you think holiness is something other people achieve - the saints in stained glass, the ones who never mess up.
But maybe… maybe you are already walking in it.
In the way you listen.💮
In the way you forgive.💮
In the way you keep going, quietly, faithfully, holding on.💮
So here’s my invitation:
Let yourself be touched by God today.🤍
Let Him stroke your heart💛 like a child strokes a cat - to comfort you. And then, do the same for someone else.💛🤍
A smile. A message. A meal. A prayer.💮🤍💮
That’s holiness too.
☕ My Own Holiness That Smells Like Coffee - Journaling
1. What does holiness mean to me today? 💮🤍💮
St. Teresa of Calcutta said,
“You don’t need to do great things - only small things with great love.”
There is something almost Van Gogh-like in that thought. He could take an ordinary chair, a pair of worn shoes, a vase of flowers, a quiet room and look at it until its hidden beauty began to shine.
His quote became a quiet guide for me through the years I spent creating beauty in the world of weddings. Even after I stepped back from running my own business, it is a constant reminder of the importance of small, thoughtful details.
These things rarely look important while we are doing them. They leave no monument behind. By evening, the laundry is still there, the dishes are waiting, and tomorrow will ask for the same small acts all over again.
2. What lies about holiness have I believed? 💮🤍💮
True humility, as St. Teresa of Ávila reminds us, is living in the truth: seeing both my weakness and the grace already at work in me, and letting God meet me there.
“True humility is living in the truth.”
3. Where can I let God work in me today? 💮🤍💮
“God wants a soul that surrenders without conditions, not one that tries to fix everything by itself.”
St. Faustina points me toward a freedom that begins where my need to fix everything ends: the freedom to surrender and let God be God in me.
Closing Quote from Alicja Lenczewska💮🤍💮
“Holiness is letting God act in you and not getting in His way with your ego.”
Holiness begins when the ego loosens its grip on control, and we become free enough to let God transform us from within. Instead of trying more to please God and people, it is more effective to trust and surrender to God, like: Let go, and let God.
When the ego dies, the soul can finally speak. 💮🤍💮
When I stop performing for approval, a different voice emerges - much quieter and truer. It’s the voice of the soul that longs for God, that dares to believe that even I can become holy… if I let Him.
The holiest moments, I’ve found, are often the ones where I am least in control - the unscripted, unfiltered, unedited spaces where His grace fills the silence I would normally fill with effort.
I don’t need to be brilliant to be a light. I just need to burn.
💮🤍💮
If you’d like to get to know Photini, the Samaritan woman, a little better, take a few minutes to read John 4 from the Scriptures. Her encounter with Jesus has so much more to say when you slow down and read the story for yourself.
St. Faustina once said she wanted to live as 'a tiny violet among lilies'- small, fragrant, forgotten by the world but radiant to God. Have you ever felt called to that quiet path?
💮🤍💮
Thank you for being here and spending a little time with me. 💛
I’m grateful for every woman who stops by, reads a few words, pauses for a moment, and perhaps carries one little thought with her into the rest of the day.
If something here spoke to your heart, take it with you. And if you feel like sharing what you discovered, I’d love to hear from you.
Blessings & Hugs,
BE 💕
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