Cookies

If you ever want to test your patience… try making meringue! Especially when you find out that you should have let the eggs sit at room temp before beating… 30 minutes after you start. If I had simply looked up meringue tips, I would have easily come across this simple cooking fact. However, stubborn me decided that I could figure it out with a simple list of ingredients. Come on, how hard can it be to whip egg whites and sugar?? Haha… harder than I thought.

In my cooking adventures, I have learned alot about cooking. Little tips and tricks and ideas…. flavors that mix, and ingredients that don’t… especially that the amount of time on the recipe card is ALWAYS wrong (I tend to multiply it by two… at least while I’m still learning). And I’ve figured out alot on my own – I’m so proud of myself! However, many times I have come across things that could have been avoided, made better, or easier by simply asking or looking it up. Note: thin asparagus should NOT be roasted, but rather microwaved. It will burn and becomes impossible to cut. And while my friends and family have enjoyed my new ambitions in the kitchen, they have also suffered… even if in silence, at some of my mishaps or simple lack of flavor. I suppose the “cookies” of life must be eaten along with the dry chicken dish at times… And sometimes by eating the mishaps, we enjoy it so much more when the dish is exquisite. A million analogies can be taken from my cooking adventures.

And before I go off in a million directions, I suppose I will end with this. Life, especially the Christian life, is much more joyful when we take each step based on God’s will and His Word. If we just pull out a bunch of “ingredients” : don’t lie, don’t steal, be nice, be patient, treat others like you want to be treated, respect your parents, etc. and try to put them all together ourselves… we end up with burnt, lumpy, doughy, heart-broken, angry people with a nice little guilt glaze. You can follow the “recipe” perfectly, but until you read the whole cookbook and get to know the One who wrote it, all you end up with is pretty cookies and a messy kitchen. I’d rather let the Head Pastry Chef guide me every step of the way – He will clean up my mess, supply the ingredients that I can’t get on my own, show me how they all mix together, and we will eat the best cookies you’ve ever tasted in Heaven together. While there WILL be times that I spill some flour, overmix, or try to make my own recipe… I know that my God will be right there with me to teach me and use my mistakes to help me learn and grow, to become an even better “cook.” I just need to hand over the spatula and let Him do His thing, and give Him all the credit for the cookies.

1 Corinthians 10:31 “So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you—you’re eating to God’s glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God’s glory.”