Bake the Bread

 "People are hungry to open up their pain to the sunlight of someone else’s listening heart. And, somehow, in the telling and in the listening, we may glimpse a bit of healing. So, here’s the thing: your story matters." Kate Bowler

Peanut and I decided to make bread to take to church yesterday.

We love to bake bread. What a great time to practice your fractions in action? Your patience? Your ability to follow directions but yet also improvise ("add flour into dough doesn't stick to the sides")?

I've tried countless bread recipes. Most of them taste good. Some of them taste really good.

None of mine ever look like the picture on the recipe.

This recipe came with a picture of a French baguette , all brown and crusty on the outside, with pretty scored marks in it.

This thing came out of the oven definitely done, definitely not brown or cute, and I don't know where my scored marks went.

It was delicious hot out of the oven. We *may* have sampled it. But it was not pretty.

Baking bread seemed fitting for Lent.

Out here in the wilderness, with sticky hands in the mess.

Peanut and I talked yesterday about how we eat with our eyes. We judge how something might taste by how it looks.

We are often the say way with people. We judge how someone might think, feel, or believe based on surface encounters.

If we are brave, we try the bread.

If we are brave, we linger with the stranger.

The older I get, I'm finding it easier to embrace the mess.

Kneed the dough.

It's uncomfortable at first to try new recipes, to put your hands deep in the mess.

I'm finding the world to be a messy place right now. I kind of want to stay home and read a book and ignore it all.

Mama Warriors, I think many of us are in a season of life where our hands are in the dough and it's messy.

We aren't sure how it's all going to turn out.

I think we are called to make the bread anyway.

And it might not be pretty.

But it will be good.

And that could be enough?