Step One - Admit Failure

About twenty years ago, we (I?) received the 40^th Anniversary Edition of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook at one of our wedding showers.  It was lovingly marked and signed by several new friends-in-law, their favorite, tried and tested recipes asterisked in permanent ink. Clearly, the givers of this gift didn’t intend it to become a nice addition to our library. They meant it to be used so all those mouth-watering flat pictures can magically come to life, become delicious meals and desserts in my own kitchen  - a daily celebration of life in all its goodness though feasting with family and friends.

I guess, that was the idea. 

Reality, however, was that I am not a Betty Crocker. Nor am I Martha Stewart, nor Rachel Ray, nor even my own mother who always loved all things kitchen.  The fun of eating is about the only thing I picked up along the way.

I can’t say that I haven’t tried the cooking part.  Honestly I did. But the level of order and all the measurements, precision and detail, timing and planning eventually proved to be too much for me.

And, after setting the fire alarm in our house while making chicken soup (don’t even ask!), I finally decided it’s time for me to admit defeat.

And so, year in year out, the Cookbook languished on a shelf inside a kitchen cabinet largely ignored, its pristine condition a silent testament to the colossal cooking incompetence of its owner.

With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God. But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. Romans 7:22-23

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did Romans 8:3