Dissolving bitterness (or learning to trust the church again)

Once, when I was about seven, I jumped into the car after school and grabbed a Thermos rolling around on the floor. I was sweaty and dying of thirst and expecting water, or lukewarm juice, but was hit instead with a mouthful of my mother's leftover coffee.

It was horrendous.

I managed to swallow it but immediately burst into tears at having been subjected to what I was absolutely certain was the foulest substance on the planet. "Why?" I remember saying over and over. Why was it there for me to find? Why would my (rushed, working, exhausted) mother have put her coffee in one of my Thermoses? Why would anybody drink that stuff to begin with? It was so bitter.