My Signature Blend

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 1 Comment

I weave stories in my field as a Language & Culture Empowerment Specialist—a learner, a teacher, and a seeker of hidden treasures in Diaspora spaces…

How to consume my words: They pair well with a comfort beverage and a reflective space. They are crafted with wholesome, layered complexity, freshly selected thoughtfulness, signature & rhythmic repetitions, punctuated with a unique blend of precious perspective found in diverse and often marginalized corners of the globe and of human hearts. Each ingredient is prayed through, wrestled with, & marinated in the life-giving words of Jesus. Not to say I always get it right. I have definitely ruined a few recipes along the way—over seasoned, over cooked, too dry, too sappy.

I am Greek-rooted, polysemic, and curiously linguistic…

My Greek-rootedness has taught me to love nuance and embrace implicitly. I live among multilingual language learners, educators and linguists, but find joy in playing with and playing on words. I respect lists and laws but express myself in parables and poetry. In my mind I’m painting pictures worth about 1000+ words. Polysemy is a fabulous Greek word that invites multiple possible meanings. It’s a blend of intentional wordplay to create open and personalized interpretations—to come away from my reflections with your own challenges, questions, thoughts and aspirations—to taste for yourself what is simmering.

I aspire to ethically sourced storytelling, marbled with brave, vulnerable introspection…

My relational connections are a profoundly significant part of my life. As a beloved friend, daughter, mother, teacher, mentor, wife, neighbor…I seek to honor the bold and distinct flavors others bring into my life. I prayerfully invite the people who have inspired my stories to get a taste of them first—and receive their feedback. In an effort to honor the impact of others and not to tell their stories without invitation, I write introspectively and share vulnerably.

I am scattered…

I am privileged to have my hands in many pots filled with deliciously diverse delicacies. I embrace scattered as a defining characteristic of living in diaspora—from the Greek—those who are scattered from their homeland. I find clarity and satisfaction when I simmer my curiosities, empathies, studies, & unique cultural experiences, and serve them in written form. My writing gathers the scattered parts into sense and meaning.

I am faith-based…

My faith has led to flourishing and compelled me on magnificent and tragic adventures I have lovingly and courageously followed my good, good Father into. To express the deep things of the soul at a base level always contains elements of faith stirred in. I live and love in diverse contexts, and I love because God first loved me.

I am not thick-skinned…

I am wired to be receptive and perceptive to linguistic patterns, human hearts, and cultural expressions. Attention to detail requires heightened sensitivities—noticing people and rhythms and hidden treasures that could easily get overlooked.

I flourish when I walk in my strengths of empathy and connectedness…

Like stillness and a steeping cup of tea—daily walks are a prayerful ritual for me to make sacred connections. Much of what I take in around me percolates and eventually spills out of these regular rhythms as I continue to figure out my blend of storytelling that truthfully reflects the joys and sorrows my heart has carried.

Not all who wander are lost—but I probably am…

I’m gifted more with metaphors than with maps. I don’t stay in my lane, because I’m buzzing from flower to glorious flower. I’m often lost in thought or following rabbits down little trails while chewing on connected ideas. I go out of my way to collect rocks from the places I’ve traversed in solidarity with the people I’ve shared meals and stories with there. As I wander, I’m simultaneously pondering the moral of the children’s story of Stone Soup and wondering how my global rock collection connects to what it means to inherit the earth as Jesus said—maybe it’s one treasured stone at a time.

I continually feed live, active cultures of chronic hope…

I live in the brokenness of my body and the brokenness of this world while clinging to the promise that the fullness of life is available for all people. In this tension, resilience is activated, yielding a leaven of hope, ultimately rising to freshly baked bread—intended to be broken and shared in community.

I embrace health-nuttiness and a small spoon….

I don’t need to take up more space than I do. My sweet spot involves nutrient-dense, small portions of something deliciously inviting and often spontaneous—which is why I treasure the small spoon I carry with me. Chronically living with leukemia has freed me up to embrace both my health-nut tendencies and a lean budget, while seeking out culinary adventures among neighbors, and in community. It’s often over meals that neighbors become friends and community becomes family—when we share a part of ourselves.

I serve generous portions…

Through unsuccessfully aspiring to succinctness, I am learning not to let word counts be my definitive limitation. I am the only one with my unique perspective. So, I invite you to savor my signature blend of detail like a delicately and expertly prepared dish made for you to taste and share. I pray that it may satisfy the souls of those who choose to break bread with me. You are welcome.

Rising Above

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 3 Comments

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. MLK, Jr.

I’m not sure if I’m haunted or inspired.

20 years and I’m still trying to figure out living.
20 years since my leukemia diagnosis in September of 2000.
20 years of grasping at my sense of self in the midst of chronic limitations.
20 years of a tenacious spirit learning to dance in fragile body.

How can I rise above my personal cancer and be a part of treating malignancies that face all humanity?

This question has been weighing on my mind since last September. I needed to rise up for my journey of Chronic Hope in order to clarify my identity.

20 years later, there is clarity to rise. But rising above is not a climb.

It’s a descent.

My challenge, quarantined in 2020, has been to listen, lament, and repent of injustice in myself and in our culture. To weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. I really wanted to just take action. But I had not stopped to consider the lack in my understanding of justice and society. And how justice for all reflects the heart of God.

There is a lot of humble stillness and lowly heart work involved in rising. Nothing glorious or stunning. Just quiet, dark, quarantined heart work.

If the world had not shut down in a global pandemic, would I have done that work?

I don’t exactly know how to take action, but one thing has become clear:

If I don’t take action, something in me will die. Or will never have the chance to truly live.

So, from this humbler and haunted place I desperately seek to learn in community from those who are taking action. To join. To grow. To serve. I thought the vulnerable and the marginalized needed me. It turns out, we need each other.

Rising above is not mine to achieve. Starting to live is not mine to map out.

Mine is to quietly join the labors of love.

To learn from those who weary their hearts and dirty their hands for the plight of others.
To allow the plight of the vulnerable to be felt deeply and personally.
To understand how to do justly, because I cannot truly love mercy without it. Mercy accompanies justice.
Ultimately, to surrender the sense of self I’ve worked so hard to grasp.

Mine is the work of vulnerable humility.

Rising belongs to the Divine Hand that is strong and wise enough to lift me up in due time.

Just curious… what are the daunting malignancies you’ve been called to rise above?

Compromised: Immuno-and-Otherwise

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 4 Comments

I got a call the other day from Dr. K, my former hematologist-oncologist of 15 years. From Michigan. I don’t know if it’s the weight of the heavy Colorado spring snow on budding branches, or the heaviness of a pandemic that hangs on every soul, but I cherish the check ins that comes my way.

Being officially in the immunocompromised category by chronic leukemia and the immunotherapy treatment for it, I feel privileged to receive random check in calls from caring people wanting to know if I am doing okay during this pandemonium that has taken over the globe. They want to make sure I am taking extra care of myself.

Emotionally Broadsided

When Dr. K called, I felt emotionally broadsided by the unexpected check in. I’m sure he has a million things to think about at the main hospital, hit hard with COVID-19, in the heart of Detroit. But he paused to think of me. To make sure I was doing okay.

That call confirmed my self-diagnosis. I am emotionally compromised. Yup. Emotions are just below the surface and ready to well up. At. Any. Moment.

Just a fair warning: If you call to check in and say kind things—I’ll probably cry. If you stop to tell me your sad or touching news—I’ll probably cry. It’s possible I might start out laughing at something and end up crying. Or vice versa. Why limit ourselves to one emotion at a time when we can feel multiple, complex emotions simultaneously?

Mentally Tumbled

And then there’s my brain. My thoughts tumble around in my head like wet laundry. The significant intertwined with the curious and bombarded with the mundane and distracted. Chaotic and scattered. It’s the opposite of focused. I’m lacking goals, and trajectory is vague. So many thoughts circling around in each presented moment. Yup. Definitely mentally compromised, too.

“How is Strength my Weakness?”

My favorite part of the movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is when the characters discover that they each have specific strengths and weakness within the Jumanji game. Kevin Hart’s character discovers that strength is actually on his list of Weaknesses.

I love his question:

“How is strength my weakness?”

But I also like to flip things around:

What if weakness is actually my strength?

What if tears are my superpower? And grief is a place I’ve grown comfortable with?

What if chronic hope comes from chronic illness?

What if immunocompromised means I’m also immuno-alert?

What if mentally scattered means centered in the present?

What if my limitations are the exact ingredients of sensitive, present, and vulnerable I need now, in the middle of a pandemic?

Broadsided by Grace

If I were to connect with the Designer of my strengths and weaknesses, how would that go?

I imagine it to be similar to The Apostle Paul’s process, being broadsided by grace—grace that came through a conduit of weakness.

Paul pleaded and discussed with the Divine to take away his weakness.

His Designer declared:

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.

My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

And so, the Apostle Paul relinquished himself to be broadsided by grace:

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride… And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Weakness was the Saint’s necessary ingredient for greater sources of grace.

To hear the voice of my Designer… Not to tell me I am healed or that I am strong. But to hear that at the heart of humanity is weakness, and that on my list of strengths, weakness is at the top.

The weaker I get, the stronger I become. In my current mentally scattered state, I’m okay to sit in the presence of this paradox. I’m okay to lavishly love on another grieving soul with my unstoppable tears. I’m awkwardly eager to hold up my best super girl akimbo pose with my favorite napping blanket flapping cape-like behind me in the wind.

I’m surprisingly okay. Immuno-okay. I’m being cautious, and there’s not much to report health wise or otherwise. So strong in weakness. So okay with my compromised state (at least in this present moment).

NY2020: Happy to Dis-appoint

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 ~ Georgia Coats ~ 2 Comments

Dear Disappointment,

I’ve spent way too much time thinking about you. But don’t flatter yourself. We’re not becoming friends. In fact, I’ve acknowledged you, unwelcomed, inside the kingdom walls of my heart. I just needed a moment to reset, refocus, breathe. I guess I also needed to spend way too much time in the shower on a Wednesday morning. Rest my thoughts.

Now I’m ready to take some action.

Here’s what I know about you: You work from within to kick down little appointments. You damper dares and infect healthy fear. You friend frustration and fiend innocence about it all. Your M.O—If you can frustrate small fulfillments of goals and longings, you can make room for your older, stronger relative—discouragement. But discouragement is harder to go unnoticed, like you.

Your goal is to impede me from moving forward with mine.

You see, my 3 words for 2020 are…

small…

…..daring…

………… worthy.

It’s a tremendous trio. It’s diamond strength I’m learning to weild.

Just in the first few weeks of 2020, I have seen what you do to daring. I’m on to you. And small—that’s my word, and you can’t claim it. Thanks to MLK Jr., I’m committed to figuring out how to do small in great ways. Wouldn’t you just love to dis-appoint all that, in your small ways?

But then there’s worthy—I have intrinsic value and this is my heart space, not yours. I have authority to appoint. All you can do is kick down edifications and expectations that others have built up. You exist to make us fret the small stuff; you are right there when the cold, full glass of milk spills, and you lie in wait to see what we’ll do about it.

Well, I’m here to dis-appoint you. Because I can.

In the little kingdom of my heart, I appoint hope to reign, which means despair is not welcome in my kingdom. I appoint encouragement as ministry of defense, and offense. Discouragement will meet defeat… outside my kingdom walls.

Thanks to you, I’m taking back my appointment power.

Thanks to you, I’m reassessing what I long for, and what I hope is fulfilled in my schedule of daily life.

Thanks to you, I’m reminded that even the greatest of greats in history faced you. But the ones I aspire to be like looked past their unfilled dreams to fulfill their greater destiny.

You and I are both small. But I have the power to appoint, and you don’t.

You don’t belong here. I can acknowledge when you show up, but I don’t have to let you stay. I don’t have to let you decide who gets to make my heart home.

I don’t have to let your disses make me feel smaller or less worthy, or even less daring. You may have damper power, but I have a fire that goes before me.

On My Mind

by Georgia

chronic hope