Lainy’s Gingerbread

Over Christmas I was gifted a beautiful set of Christmas themed cookie cutters. It didn’t take long for my daughter, Lainy to find them and excitedly asked me to try them out. I could not resist her eager pleas, so we found a recipe and the ingredients and diligently started following the directions.

But for some reaon or another, the dough was too wet and not at all a good consistency. At this point, Lainy lost interest in the process and wanted to get to the fun part, fast! I took about 5 minutes adding the flour bit by bit while being told “it’s taking too long.” Finally we were ready and got rolling and cutting.

Lainy is only 4 years old so there were mistakes and some recutting that needed doing. After the first tray, Lainy decided that she needed to rest and I could do the rest by myself. There were at least another five trays of gingerbread to go, so I kept at it. When the first ones came out of the oven, she was back with excitement to see how they had turned out.

As the parent, I spent hours on the process of making ginger bread cookies and had the sore feet to prove it!

It was not until later that this experience highlighted something for me; we have plans for our lives, we follow the ‘right’ steps as dictated by society, family and peers. However, it doesn’t always turn out the way we planned. There could be an “ingredient” we are missing, and for me, this missing ingredient was Jesus.

We might be impatiently waiting for God to finish adding to our lives and shaping us. We might lose interest and wander off. We might be present and show up only for the fun and exciting bits but drift off for the parts that are not working out or are too hard or boring.

Throughout the whole process, God is diligently working to knead us into shape, bake us in the oven, and then we come out just as He intended.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9)”.