My mother cannot make jello. She can make a flourless chocolate cake that will blow your mind, amazing chili, fabulous enchiladas and rolls that melt in your mouth. I told her the other night that she has ruined applesauce...because I will never be able to buy it in the store again. My godsons will go through a jar of her homemade jam in a morning if they are left alone with the jar. My Mother, though, cannot make jello. It's a mystery. One day years (and years and years and years) from now I will put the following on her headstone--"a great wife, mom, grandma, friend and cook but could not make jello. That darn jello just would not jell".
Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little...about the headstone. I don't hold it against Mom that her jello won't jell. It's become a joke but I hope she knows we just like to joke with her about her jello. We don't mean anything by it. She's fabulous at so much more, the non-jelling jello is doesn't even matter.
Besides cooking, my Mother is an amazing quilter, has the ability to make small talk with just about anyone and was an excellent Youth Director's Mom. She went on many youth trips and they all loved her. She could walk into a room on youth group night and the kids would rush her for hugs. That is an inherent gift.
We all have talents and gifts, things that we are inherently good at and things we have worked really hard to become good at. There are times, though, when we lose sight of the things we are good at and just focus on the things we struggle with, the talents and gifts that don't come naturally, that take a lot out of us and the things we berate ourselves for in the middle of the night when we wake up from a sound sleep to stare into the darkness for hours.
I've had a few of those nights in the last 11 months. Nights when I woke up and knew I had messed something up, really bad, and dreaded going into work. There was one week where I worked myself up so much, I had a full blown panic attack on the way to work. I used a cultivated talent to figure out it was a panic attack...I looked it up on the internet. :)
Working outside of my gifting and natural talents isn't so much a bad thing. There are days when I definitely feel stretched beyond my limits and I am quick to point out when I don't feel secure with something. But those moments when I work within my gifting and talents, those moments are priceless. Unfortunately, I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the worship service that flowed so smoothly because I operated out of what I knew and with the talent I've been given and didn't worry about anything. No, I wake up worrying about things that do not come easy, things I work hard to perfect and things that I spend time berating myself not being good at. This is my humanity.
Today, I pulled out my recipe book and began the process of making a King Cake. I love to bake and tackling a yeasty King Cake is a fun challenge. I get a little nervous using yeast but there were four extra packets so if packet one didn't work I would try again. The yeast bloomed, the mixture came together and soon I was kneading the dough. For 10 minutes I pushed and pulled and used a lot of wrist and forearm to smooth out the dough. As I write, the dough is rising, I hope, and soon I will form and fill the cake and let it rise again. I have no control over the rising process. I just sit back and wait, hoping the skills I am perfecting have done the work needed for a successful outcome.
As I was kneading the dough I started talking to God. I started with words that are familiar to our conversations and moved into unexplored territory. The words stopped flowing when I said aloud that which has been niggling at the back of my conscious...words reminding me of the gifts and talents I have that have been pushed to the background while I try to, well, make jello. It's just not jelling.
My revelation for today isn't new, it's a reminder of who I am, of who God created me to be and is a piece of the puzzle I am working at putting together on this journey...somewhere down the road.
