Lessons from the Coffee Machine by Natasha Woodcraft

Life is bonkers busy at the moment. And when it's bonkers busy, the things that usually get pushed out are my writing and my really long sofa chats with God. The two things I enjoy the most but that don't contribute in many ways to the family coffers.

Yet, those two things are also what I consider my coffee filter. Writing, because it's the way I process the world around me, and long sofa chats, because they're the way I process my writing. Let me explain. Writing (for me at least) is a bit like using a coffee machine. Coffee machine stage 1: shove raw ingredients in – coffee beans, or ground coffee, and water (perhaps milk too if you have a posh, frothing machine.) Coffee machine stage 2: push button and, after a few minutes, coffee comes out the other side.

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When we're writing, we shovel things into the machine too: our own ideas, experiences and passions, genre tropes, research and education, purposes for doing what we're doing, writing training and English literature degrees, shovelling it all in, hoping that what trickles out the other side is something worth reading, something palatable. Sometimes it gives us an 'Ah' moment as a silky smooth latte glides gloriously down the throat, and sometimes… it doesn't. Sometimes the coffee we used was out of date or too bitter. The raw ingredients weren't right. Other times, the filter paper split. Or was never there to begin with.

Because here's the thing about coffee machines – the quality of what comes out isn't just about the beans you put in. It's about what happens in between: that crucial filtering process that separates the bitter grounds from the smooth liquid we actually want to drink.

So, in this metaphor, what's the filter paper? Oh yes, really long sofa chats with God (I got there eventually.) At least, it is in my case. Dog walks often do it too – really long ones where you accidentally go the wrong way around the lake and ended up walking for two hours rather than the intended 30 minutes. Those ones. Ideas flow on those walks, or during sofa chats. Sometimes writing ideas, but most often, for me at least, editing ideas. Because my filter paper – the thing all the raw ingredients need to run through in order to come out silky smooth – is prayer.

This filter paper has many functions. But here's two of them. Firstly, it's about refining what stays and removing what doesn't belong. Presenting what I've written to God and asking him to refine it so that it becomes something beautiful and kingdom-building. Meditating on the words—'Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—think about such things' (Philippians 4:8)—and filtering out the opposite. Then what gets left behind isn't just poor grammar or weak metaphors (probably like this one) – it's the ego-driven tone that seeks to impress rather than serve, the sharp edges that cut rather than heal, or the subtle bitterness that can creep into our words when we're writing from hurt rather than hope. These elements don't belong in our finished work any more than coffee granules belong in our cup. Without this crucial stage, the coffee is likely to come out bitter, or worse.

Photo by Caleb Kwok from Pexels

Secondly, the filter paper makes the process longer, and that's absolutely essential. It takes time for the ingredients to seep their way through. And that's kind of the point. It's marinating time, flavour-building time. Things that have filtered through slowly are not just particle smooth, but flavour smooth. Palatable. There's something about the unhurried pace of a long dog walk or a rambling sofa chat that allows ideas to settle, connections to form, and the right words to bubble up naturally. You can't rush good coffee, and you can't rush good writing either. The best insights often come not when we're frantically typing, but when we're quietly walking or sitting in God's presence, letting our thoughts steep like granules in hot water.

So when life gets bonkers busy again (and it will), and I'm tempted to skip the sofa chats and the accidentally-long dog walks, maybe I need to remember that they're not separate from my writing – they ARE my writing. Well, the most important part of it, anyway. The sofa chats aren't time away from the work; they're what transforms all those jumbled experiences and half-formed thoughts into something worth sharing. Something that doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste.

Because nobody really wants to drink coffee with the grounds still in it, do they? And frankly, the world has quite enough unfiltered words already.

Natasha Woodcraft lives in a slightly crumbling farmhouse in Lincolnshire with her family of boys and animals. She believes stories have power to communicate deep truth and transform lives. Her published novels explore God’s redemptive purposes for ordinary, messy people living in biblical times. Natasha is on the team at Broad Place Publishing, a new, exciting enterprise offering publishing and self-publishing services to those who write for the Kingdom of God.