Jo Bower's Blog

With apologies to readers who don’t bake from scratch. jb 

II baked the perfect cake.
I rejoiced as I creamed the shortening, butter and sugar.
The fats absorbed the sugars, turned a lovely white and fluffed to perfection.

I had been given a new pan; a perfect size for the amount of batter.
The cake baked better than any other time I’d used this recipe.
You could nave taken a picture and put it in the dictionary under ‘chocolate pound cake.’

We were to have guests, and it was my husband’s birthday week.
But the guests cancelled, and the cake sat there.
Chocolate knows how to push my buttons, so I cut into it.

I frowned, made faces, and sputtered.
I cut another small piece and tried it again.
Same results. I was suddenly glad our guests had cancelled.

It tasted terrible!
I started looking for causes.
I couldn’t believe it looked so pretty and tasted so bad.

It wasn’t my technique.
Maybe the aluminum pan?
And then I realized the taste was bad shortening.

I threw the cake away.
I tried everything I could, and nothing changed the taste.
All that beautifulness was ruined by one bad ingredient.

Some of life’s lessons this cake represents are obvious.
You know the ones about inner beauty.
And how the hidden ingredient looked fine, but ruined the product.

But God spoke to me about my inner life.
How we let God into our lives and He changes our way of life.
But somehow, we don’t let him change our core.

The pride, the obsessions, the bad judgment,
The egocentricity – where I see everything through how it affects me….
And not my witness, or other’s feelings, needs or ideas a left deep inside.

Somehow I never allow God to really become part of my entire self.
I’m afraid He’ll require something of me I want for myself.
So I keep him on busy working on the outside of me.

And I miss the peace of transparent living.
I have agendas (I hate that word)
And assume everyone else does.

God, give me courage to let you change
All the different ingredients of my life.
So one part of my life doesn’t ruin all the rest.