Quiet Calling

I have a lot of time alone when I work, so most days I have a lot of time to think and pray....In the quiet hours I spend in the kitchen, baking, cooking, organizing, cleaning....God quietly reveals His heart to me. I love those times. God, my cooking, and me. There's something about it which makes every thing I do seem so much more meaningful....with every fold of dough, every beat of the mixer, and every pie which slowly browns and caramelizes in the oven, I feel the Holy Spirit working in my heart. Today a woman came to pay her bill and told me how amazing the food was and that I must make it with a lot of love! She was sweet and excited, and I told her, "Well, I guess you could say that. I pray over it while I make it." And that is how I know I've found my calling. No matter where I work, how good the food is, or how fast it is rushed to their table, the only reason it is enjoyed is because God is always with me. We often pray God will be our hands, our feet, His words will come out of our mouths, our hearts will be ones after His own. When I work I can feel my hands doing His work and my feet walking those rooms to minister to the people hungry for more than a multiple course meal. I pray that no matter where God takes me in life I will always have the confidence that I'm exactly where He wants me to be. Where He's going to take me I have no clue. But that's okay.....I just keep cooking, praying, and waiting for Him to reveal Himself to me....and He never ceases to show up.

Removing the Anvil

I have, for many years, not been a person prone to crying. Most events like weddings, funerals, hurts, joys, pms, whatever, are things which make people produce this phenomenon of water bursting out of your eyeballs but for some reason, for many years, I wanted so badly to be able to cry but I just couldn't. Walls had been built up in my life, and even though crying doesn't change a situation or even make it better, it is a symbol of vulnerability which most don't want to show and I am one of those people. Building those walls wasn't just a matter of guarding my heart, it was a matter of making it unreachable. For a while I wouldn't even allow myself to cry by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and pushing down that emotion made me feel like I was carrying a 5-ton anvil in my heart. I have even been proud of my hard heart at times, thinking it was a way of being tough, like the world just can't reach me! But I realized that having a hard heart only makes me more like the world, rather than someone the world cannot get to. Having a hard heart doesn't bring me closer to God, and neither does is make me more like God. All it does is makes me inpenetrable by the working of the Holy Spirit when He wants to work in me, and makes it harder for me to relate to others. One of the hardest things for me to do is approach someone and tell them why I feel a certain way, or tell them I'm upset, or share something which could possibly make me feel uncomfortable. But relationships are about being open and loving each other, no matter where you are coming from or what the past tells. In all my experiences not one of my true friends have ever rejected me because of my imperfection, and neither have I rejected them. Why? Because we are all imperfect and live in a fallen world where we are saved by grace and grace alone. One of the most powerful tools the devil uses against us is the fear of being truly known, and therefore makes us think it's okay to wear that facade of being perfectly okay. It's worse to be "perfectly okay" (because no one really is), than to be "not okay" and be honest with yourself and others. What does this have to do with crying? Crying is just one way to express emotion, and even though I know it doesn't change the situation, my tears have been a sign that God has been working and molding my heart. Maybe for you it's something different, but for me it's simply allowing myself to be open with Jesus, allowing myself be vulnerable....a scary place to be when you've been so guarded for so long, but the best place to be with the Savior who already knows why you're scared, what you're scared of, and is willing to take the anvil out of your heart. This is what He means by saying, "my burden is light"...because we give Him ours and we are suddenly free. To you, my dear friend and prayer partner, thank you for encouraging me to be open and honest....and my true self....you are a priceless treasure.

Sloth and Chunk

Have you ever seen The Goonies? I love that movie, I grew up watching it. My favorite person was Chunk, and I think it's because I could relate to him on a chubby level since I was a bit on the pudge side as a kid......I just thought he was really funny, doing the truffle-shuffle and always being hungry. Either way, I always liked the fact that Chunk befriended Sloth. Sloth wasn't much on the outside, just a big ogre-like guy with a crazy eyes and a big head with a little patch of hair on top, but under the layer of ugliness was a real gem. At the very end Sloth stands up under a crumbling wall to save all the characters in the movie and before Chunk goes through he says, "I love you Sloth!" and he of course yells back, "I wuv oo too Chunk!" You may be at a brink in life, a steep cliff is before you and you have to decide whether or not to jump. The situation may seem dim and look really ugly on the outside, and you may want to flee in the oposite direction thinking, "God I just can't handle this, it's too much and it's far too ugly for me to face!" Before you step back in fear and run away, consider what the result could be if you did take that plunge. Why would God put something in front of you which you can't overcome? After you look that ugly situation straight in the eye and say, "I will not be consumed by you, no, I will live and be the person God created me to be!" You may find that situation was exactly what you needed to discover exactly who God IS creating you to be. It's the ugly things we face which end up blessing us in the long run. And sometimes, overcoming means failing. God puts situations in front of us and sometimes when we fail, it's solely to reveal our need for God and the strength of our Father. So in the end of the movie Sloth saves all the kids by standing up under a crumbling wall of rocks. The rocks were heavy but he stood his ground because he knew he had to. Stand firm in your faith, and when the cliff finally starts to crumble around you you will find the strength to stand up under it. It could've been so easy for Sloth just to let all the rocks fall on them and be like, "Wow, I'm big but not big enough to hold this falling wall up!" but he still held up and in the end, after he stood the test, he found a new home and family. Oh, and Chunk's mom got them all pizza (Chunk's favorite, yesssss.....), and they also found a little bag of treasure which ended up saving their homes, creating a happy ending for all! God doesn't want us to be miserable, He just wants us to be strong in Him so we can be with Him forever. he want us to have our happy ending. God's plans always prevail, so if His plan is for us to be happy, we will be happy. And now, it's time for the truffle-shuffle of joy!