Falling apart

Falling apart

Up and at ‘em early this morning with a big to-do list stretching across the pad. Soured cream in the fridge needed using up, so I thought I’d quickly whip up a cake for a family I wanted to give something to. I took extra care reading the directions and even put breadcrumbs in the Bundt cake pan. I’ve had trouble extricating them before from that pan, and that was the suggestion on the recipe so I did it.

Used the right flour, large eggs, added the ingredients in the right order, beat it the required amount. Into the pre-heated oven, set the timer and hey-presto, not even 9 am and ready to tick something off the list! 

I used the baking time to settle into the prayer alcove and have some quiet time with God. Read Psalm 86, all about trusting God who is faithful. Read it again. And again in a different version, thinking of all those situations and people who are on my heart just now. Holding them before God and doing my best to trust him with the lot.

Well, then the cake was done and as I took it out I suddenly thought I needed to cool it upside down, balanced on the Worcestershire sauce bottle stuck through the hole in the middle. Only I didn’t. I shouldn’t have. That is for an angel food cake, not for a cake in a pan which has breadcrumbs on it to keep it from sticking.

Because sticking is something it certainly didn’t do. As I tipped it upside down, it shot out of the pan like a child on a water slide and broke into four or five chunks. Hot chunks. 

Now my dilemma is: do I know this family well enough to take them a cake which has experienced a catastrophic tremor? Or should I slice it and arrange the slices on a plate so nobody needs know? Whatever happens, given all the Easter eggs and birthday cake and hot cross buns around here I definitely don’t want any of it left for us to eat!

So I went for a walk. Always good to walk when you don’t know what else to do. And I thought about the recipe. It didn’t say to turn the cake upside down to cool. But I ignored that. Well, I never even looked at that part of the recipe because I’d already stored it away on the bookshelf by then. I just thought I knew what to do. I am an experienced baker. I know what I’m doing. Hah.

Life is like that. At my age, I am an experienced live-er, but one who still needs to consult the Maker’s recipe often. I think I know how God wants me to live. But irritations crop up and I find I am thinking unkind thoughts, lacking in grace and love. I need to get back into that recipe book called the Bible and be encouraged, rebuked, enlightened, reminded of the high expectations God has of me.  And be filled with the Holy Spirit again so I might just manage to achieve some of them.

If my life is to finish neatly, I need to keep reading the Bible to get the recipe right, or I will fall apart like my cake did this morning.

Tipsy Angel

The tree’s only been up a few days and already the spiky top is leaning over, the angel perched precariously as though she might pitch sideways at any moment. Pine needles haven’t yet begun to rain down on the carpet though. 

Preparations for the big day are in full swing. Cards are mostly sent, some meaningful, some funny. Decorations are up. Cake is made. Cookies are underway, and their production will no doubt take up hours over the next few days. And a few more presents to buy, a little more food to purchase.

What would be nice, right smack in the middle of the week before Christmas, would be a full day’s retreat. A retreat from the bustle and hustle of it all in order to reflect on the meaning of the day, take stock of the year which has past, anticipate and pray about the year to come. 

I don’t see it happening this side of Christmas. But I hope that between the holidays I will make space for such a pause. 

God calls us to remember what he has done. It gives us strength and hope for the future, when we remember the wonderful things he has done in the past. 

Whatever this season means for you, be it happy or be it blue, I pray that you will allow yourself space to reflect with God.

We don’t want to waver like the tipsy angel atop the tree, in danger of pitching forward or backward.