Life Lessons From Cookie Batter

When I was 5 years old, I wasn't much different from the person I am now; I cried easily, I smiled a lot, and I loved chocolate. :) See? Not much has changed.

One particular time, my craving for chocolate was so intense that I began scouring the kitchen for anything chocolate-esque. The first thing I came to was a canister of baking cocoa. Sweet! Or so I thought... Thinking I had stumbled upon a veritable chocolate goldmine, I grabbed the biggest spoon I could find and dug in. I didn't hold back. I enthusiastically shoveled that scoop of cocoa into my mouth.

Words fail me to describe my (literally) bitter disappointment. The coughing and gagging that ensued were not pretty. And I've never ever been tempted to eat baking cocoa again. Ever. *shudders*

Fast forward to today:

Noah, in all his Bad Cold Glory, hasn't been himself so we've been doing a lot of hanging out together and baking. Today he wanted to make chocolate cookies (a little man after my own heart!). We were mixing up the dough, and it came time to add the baking cocoa. Breaking out into a cold sweat at my childhood flashback, I felt it appropriate and kind of me to warn my little boy about the disgusting-ness of baking cocoa if eaten by itself.

Me: "Noah, this is baking cocoa. I know it looks yummy like chocolate, but it's not. It's VERY yucky. Never eat this by itself!"

Noah: "Because it's yucky all by itself, but in the cookies it's yummy!"

This boy caught on! :) And that got me to thinking about spiritual things. This next thought is nothing new, and may even be an old cliche revisited, but it's still a good reminder:

God adds a lot of different ingredients to our lives. Some are "yucky" by themselves, and some (like butter) are simply divine. Added together, they make something which is so much more than the sum of its parts--our lives. As Job said, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" Job 2:10 There are some things in my life which taste as bitter as baking cocoa to me; my infertility, for one. There are others which are as rich and smooth and delicious as butter; my relationship with God, my family, good health, to name a few. Together they become the exact recipe God intends for my life specifically. And God has never made a mistake!

All that from baking cocoa! :)

What's in your recipe today?


Noah doing a surprisingly good job of mixing the batter


This picture is deja vu from yesterday. But we're having a deja vu kind of day, so I thought it kind of fitting.


That redness you see on Noah's cheeks is not just from his fever. He has tiny broken blood vessels all over his cheeks from coughing so violently over the last couple days. It's so sad!

Comments

Melanie said…
Joanna,

You're an amazing writer! You should go on the radio with that devotional! It sounds like an Elizabeth George or Joni Erickson Tada devotional! :) I loved it. What a great concept, and so interestingly delivered.
Enjoy your cookies!
Melanie
March 5, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Ruth said…
Yet isn't it so easy to focus on the "bitter" parts? I was reminded of that several times lately. Once when a friend from college (who is about 41 years old) posted on Facebook about how a woman talking about something being a bride's worst nightmare just had no idea how good she had it. Those who long to be wives/mothers and are still single - that has to be harder than what you and I have gone through just as it must be harder for those I've known who were married and ttc and did ivf and such and still never had any children. If I look at those who are popping kids out left and right then it's easy to throw myself a pity party, but then if I look at those who never got married or got married but never had kids although they badly wanted them, then I am very grateful and the "sting" of having to endure hundreds of shots and spend tens of thousands of dollars when we were ttc for 6 years fades. One other time this hit me was when watching a missionary couple's video last weekend of life in Cambodia - the physical suffering from Tuberculosis, the starvation, etc. One woman said she checked her kids at night to see if they were still alive as they had so little food she thought they might have starved to death. We here in America are SOOOOO blessed and take those blessings for granted SOOO often!
March 5, 2010 at 11:42 AM
Carrie said…
Thanks for sharing! Glad I can still keep up with you this way but I still wish I could talk and see you still. Noah is getting so big, as are my boys.
March 5, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Ruth said…
P.S. I would agree with Melanie's comment. This devotional is excellent. Hopefully you'll be able to share it again in the future through another venue especially if you hand out some of those yummy looking cookies after the devotional is over, LOL!
March 5, 2010 at 1:53 PM
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