The Grandmother Who Never Unplugged the Coffee Pot

In the small town of Bardstown, Kentucky, Martha Edelen kept a coffee pot warming on her kitchen counter every single day for forty-three years. Her grandchildren thought it was eccentric. Her neighbors called it wasteful. But Martha had her reasons. Her husband, Colonel James Edelen, had served three tours overseas, and twice he had come home unannounced — once at 2:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, once during a Sunday thunderstorm. Both times, Martha had fresh coffee waiting.

"A woman who loves well is a woman who stays ready," she told her granddaughter Sarah. Even after James passed in 2011, Martha kept that pot on. When Sarah asked why, Martha said quietly, "Because readiness isn't about who's coming through the door. It's about who I've chosen to be while I wait."

Jesus told His disciples to watch — not because the waiting would be easy, but because the waiting would shape them. The doorkeeper doesn't know the hour. The fig tree doesn't know the calendar. But the One who is coming knows every faithless midnight and every weary dawn.

Mark 13 isn't a puzzle to decode. It's a posture to adopt. The Almighty doesn't ask us to predict the hour. He asks us to live as people who believe the hour matters — coffee on, lamps lit, hearts ready.