Yesterday, we went over to my Mom and Dad’s to bake.
Practically, we trundled Karen’s mixer and all of her ingredients for molasses and sugar cookies over there because our oven runs hot and we tend to set off the smoke alarm.
Better chance, usually, to make charcoal briquettes than cupcakes.
My Mom was making cherry nut bread which is something she has been baking since I was a kid.
I can start singing Christmas carols the week before Thanksgiving.
(I don’t know if Dean Martin’s A Marshmallow World counts but I’ve been singing it for a good month now). 🙂
I can put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving but Christmas isn’t really Christmas for me until the cherry nut bread comes out.
And my Mom has been the sole proprietor of cherry nut bread all of my life. No one else makes it except her.
Her recipe is from the 1960s and she gave Karen a copy yesterday.
There were unsaid implications there.
Maybe just to me, but I could see the passing of the cherry nut bread recipe was meaningful to her.
Like an alchemist passing the recipe for gold to an astonished apprentice, my Mom was passing the recipe for MY Christmas along to Karen.
In The Gift of Jesus: Meditations For Christmas, Charles Stanley references Paul’s recipe for our lives in Romans 8:28:
Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
This is one of the sweetest, most comforting verses in the whole Bible.
Alan F. Johnson writes in Romans:
“It is the firm conviction that under the hand of the Sovereign Lord of all creation, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose”. God has a plan. Everything in our lives contributes to the realization of that purpose. It is an all-comprehensive plan in that “all” things are included; not one detail of our lives is excluded. It is a cooperative plan in that all things are “working together” in concert; the individual ingredients, as in a kitchen recipe, have no virtue or ultimate significance in themselves apart from the providential combination into the divine pattern.”
What is sugar, flour, butter, eggs, cherries, walnuts, and Lord knows what all until they are all combined?
A mess on the counter.
Paul’s formulation is similar.
All things work for good IF I’m called to be a lover of God and IF I understand that all that happens within His plan is going according to His will–no matter where that is on my Happiest I’ve Ever Been In My Life/ Pure, Abject Terror & Misery scale.
As a believer, I’m privileged to know that anytime I stumble or feel alone or miserable that ULTIMATELY, all will work out for good–in accordance with HIS WILL.
Charles Stanley reminds me that even as become intimate with and understand Paul’s words in Romans 8:28, I’m still going to falter at times:
“Even when we attempt to keep all the rules of holiness, we may unwittingly violate the commands we do not know or that are perplexing to us. There are also the complex situations that can make good people disagree–who can discern and avoid what is iniquity then? We make our best guesses and then forever wonder if we took the right path.”
I like to think I’m always doing my best, but I’m not.
Yesterday, I was fresh from a painful physical therapy session (I’ve got a 100 degree knee bend now), so I wasn’t much help baking except to keep the spiked eggnog flowing.
I hated missing out on the actual baking going on in the kitchen, but my knee pain served another purpose.
I was able to sit quietly with my Dad. We didn’t say much. His dementia doesn’t allow him to really carry on a conversation like he used to.
He was reading a month-old local newspaper or pretending to.
But we were at peace with each other, simply sitting in the same room.
Charles Spurgeon writes about Paul’s promise:
“Are you suffering severe losses, and carrying heavy crosses? They ought to seem very light to you now. As long as you are forgiven, what does anything else matter?”
While we were sitting my Mom took a phone call from one of their friends (he’s 92) that moved out to California and who had just lost his wife.
Their friend was talking about giving it all up. Just laying down and dying.
I listened in as my Mom and then surprisingly my Dad talked to him about what an amazing husband he was to his wife and to not just give up.
My parents were so HOPEFUL with him.
Henry Blackaby writes in Experiencing God Day-By-Day:
“When Jesus conquered death, He forever changed the way Christians view death. Christians still experience the sorrow of losing someone we love, but we have hope because we know that God can bring good out of any situation.”
My Mom and Dad live Romans 8:28.
My Mom hung up and said, “Terry’s not going to last a month.”
None of us are going to last, really. Our job while we are here is to love God, to accept Jesus, and to understand that even difficult experiences are meant for our good, to make us more like Christ.
The promise of Romans 8:28 isn’t available to us, unless we do.
We pulled out of the driveway, laden with fresh cookies, and I could see my Mom tearing up and holding onto my Dad.
Unsaid implications. Tearful hope.
Lord, we are grateful for the promise that You are constantly at work, orchestrating all things for the good of those who love You.
Lord, help us be vessels of Your hope with those who are facing difficulties and hardships. Help us understand that You are able to turn even the most challenging situation into an opportunity for good.
Amen.