(...on a Tuesday)
I keep getting this itch to blog. Let me say I am dumbfounded/laugh at this because I don't even think there is anyone out there really reading this, especially with my inconsistency. Then I get to thinking, what the heck, why not just write and see what pours out just in case? So here I am, five months later (once again), ready to just type some stuff here that is hopefully fun to read and is encouraging either in the cooking department or the spiritual department.
To help explain myself, I always get this want to blog when I am cooking or baking. When I'm in the kitchen, that is my down time, and I can think about more than my to-do lists and school work. Usually I bake on Sunday's because that's my day to just chill out and be normal. That's also the day I can assure you I start with God and He resets me for my week. Plus He's usually got me thinking about some stuff that others might want to think about too.
SO- here we go.
This week the baking came earlier than Sunday because one of my closest friends came to visit and her birthday was Thursday (plus I am on spring break, so why not?)!! Of course I had to make some sweet treats to welcome her to Mass. I remade a recipe that I've probably posted about before: Nutella Crinkle Cookies, which I don't have a picture of, sorry. However the real fun was a new recipe- the BEST cinnamon rolls I have made (granted this was my first time making them from scratch). Of course, it was the Pioneer Woman who put out this recipe originally, and I got a copy cat version off of Pinterest. Click the links for either recipe. These blogs do a much better job directing than I do if you want to make them. Of course we enjoyed her sugar-filled-birthday breakfast with our favorite Greyhouse Coffee which was also an ingredient in the cinnamon roll frosting. It was the perfect match. I wish I had taken better pictures of the food, but hopefully you can assume just by the look on my friend's face that we were excited about our early-morning sugar overload.
While I was making the dough for these bad boys, I was watching this video:
Fully living for Jesus Christ by Nick Vujicic
and it made making these birthday rolls ten times sweeter. I know- cheesy transition, but if you read this blog, you'll just have to accept that I think in puns. Nick Vujicic's perspective and ability to be a tool of Jesus Christ is something truly incredible, and oddly enough, his words are so relatable and raw which is what I appreciate the most. You'll know what I mean about being relatable once you start watching. If you have the patience, watch Nick Vujicic's videos using the link above, or at least one of them. I promise you won't regret it one bit, and he will inspire you whether you believe in God or not.
For those of you that couldn't care less about the videos, here's what was on my heart this past week:
"God often times presents answers to prayers in packages you don't want." -John Bevere's book Under Cover.
We are reading this book in my small group, and that quote was the subtitle under the chapter. I'll just start by saying this:
First of all, no one really wants to hear that because we want what we want, duh.
Second of all, everyone needs to hear that because sometimes it's just true. Sometimes the right answer looks different to God than it does to us, and His way wins every time. We just have to recognize it.
So often, for those of you who follow Christ, we pray for things: marriage, money, jobs, better health, relational help, clarity, understanding, guidance. Things we "NEED". And then we have expectations for how God will deliver these needs/wants/answers to us and we look for those in particular "packages", for lack of a better term, not the "unexpected delivery". So as my friend was leading this discussion revolved around this quote, he gave a list of ways that God could deliver answers to our prayers like these. He said (in much different words) that instead of the answer we are expecting, the plan "A" way, it may actually looks like a plan N, Q, or 4 way because those definitely don't look anything like the plan A, or the B, C, and D that you probably came up with if it wasn't the plan A answer/delivery (hopefully you kind of followed that thought process of mine). The answers could be completely random, unseen, or unexpected in our eyes, but they are still answers nonetheless, we just often miss them and feel ignored or like we just need to be patient. To explain this idea a little more, my friend then proceeded to give a whole list of prayers in the said categories I listed above and tied it to the unexpected package delivery to help us connect the dots. Of course he got to the lovey/marriage ones, because let's face it, most of us are still in that stage of life and he explained:
"you could be praying that you experience the kind of love that God has for us here on earth, as in you want the love you get in a marriage, and He gives you someone unlovable because that's God's real love right? The father who loves those that are ungrateful, unthankful, and distant BUT YET HE LOVES AND PURSUES THEM THROUGH IT ALL. He didn't necessarily give you someone for marriage, but someone to show love like Christ loves them therefore really experiencing what it's like to love like He does."
I'll be the first to admit that this is my weak point. I am a typical twenty-something hopeless romantic, so of course I have prayed that prayer countless times. As he was explaining all of this, internally my jaw had hit the floor and all the lightbulbs turned on in my head and my heart kind of sunk. My answer to prayer was a man, and God's answer was challenging me with people to love to the greatest capacity, selflessly and unconditionally. I'm not saying that God has given me the most unlovable people necessarily, but He has challenged me with different friendships and how I should love people more than I have ever been challenged before since I moved to Massachusetts. Often I complain about how ungrateful, unthankful, and distant people are and how much it drives me crazy!!!!! Whoops. That wasn't the response God wanted me to have. Now I see that, even though I was a little less thrilled with the packaging, I see these situations more as opportunities than burdens and annoyances unlike before and that makes me excited. I always grasped that God could say no to something I wanted, but I never thought of this "disguised delivery" approach- that He was actually answering me just doing it in a way that wasn't even on my radar. So whatever it is you're praying and waiting to have answered, look in all the other places because there might be an answer you aren't seeing.
As cliche as it is, I'll end with this. I feel so lucky to have God who loves me when I am ungrateful, unthankful, and distant. He answers my prayers in ways I don't want in order to make me better in the end. He pursues me when I am my ugliest self, as He does with you as well.
To me, that is pretty sweet.
Thanks for reading and I hope it was an okay way to spend some time,
T. Hall
