Today was a very FULL day. Since I haven't felt up to much over the last week, I have this long list of "to do" items that have been compiling. Today was an attempt at checking many of those items off the list. It seemed the more I tried to accomplish, the more I stumbled along the way.
After work I needed to pick up some dessert for the girls to take with them to the Youth Group dinner at church. I decided that Costco has great cookies in their bakery and it's on my way home from work, so I stopped in there. Of course the place was busy around the 5:00 p.m. hour and I ended up standing in a very long line. I got through the line only to drop the cookies all over the floor near the entrance. They were very gracious and allowed me to exchange the ruined cookies for some new ones at no cost to me. So now I had my cookies, but it took me twice as long as I thought it would.
I took the girls to Youth Group and headed out to run errands. I needed to pick up supplies and groceries for a bake sale we're having to support a hospital in Mali. The bake sale is this Saturday and I needed to do most of my grocery shopping tonight. On my long list of items to buy was 18 large eggs. I was in the check line of the grocery store when the eggs took a tumble from my cart to the floor, making sure to break every last 18 of them. What a Mess!!
At this point I've watched the "cookie crumble" and "walked carefully on eggshells" what else could possibly go wrong? How about an exploding can of pepsi. When I got back to the house with all my groceries I placed a 12 pack of pepsi a little too hard on the floor and one can exploded in the package. So, I went about cleaning up pepsi from my floor.
Just to rub salt in my wound I realized after I got home that I incorrectly informed the grocery checkout lady about the number of soda packages I had purchased. My mind was so focused on the fact that I had packages of 12 that I told her I have 12 packages in my cart (I wasn't about to lift them all on the conveyor belt), when I only had 9 packages with 12 in a package. I ended up paying for 3 packages I never even had, but I do remember telling her 12, so I'm calling it my "idiot tax". It just grips the Cheap Mennonite in me that I paid $9 more than I had too.
** I should have never asked myself what else could go wrong. I wrote this post last evening, and this morning I awoke to find out that the auxillary fridge in our basement (the one storing all my bake sale perishables) had gone out during the night. Just another little set back in a day full of mishaps. **
Despite all the set backs to my day I did enjoy the baking that ended my evening. With the bake sale this Saturday (Lord, please don't let it rain that morning/early afternoon) I had a lot of baking to do. I started with the chocolate chip cookies this evening, and as I rolled the cookie dough I started thinking about Jake Tillett. It's not surprising that Jake was forefront in my thoughts, the bake sale is to support his service to the Koutiala Hospital in Mali, Africa. Jake will be serving there for the next year and other rural clinics.
So, the bake sale was reminding me of Jake, also the simple act of rolling out cookie dough brought him to mind. One of my favorite memories of Jake was the evening he came over to help me roll out hundreds and hundreds of cookies for an Art Benefit we were having to raise funds for the African Refugees in Salt Lake City. As my contribution to the benefit (hey I'm no artist) I was providing the catering to the event. Jake volunteered to help as my baker's assistant for the evening before the event.
It was a long long evening of baking cookies and prepping other items. Jake, the poor dear, spent most of the evening rolling and rolling cookie dough. If you haven't noticed I've mentioned several times that he rolled cookie dough. I'm not able to stress enough how long he was at that task or how tedious it was for him. I don't think Jake will ever be volunteering to help me bake again :)
The cookies that night were a huge hit. Jake and I had made them bite sized, so that they carried more with the upscale atmosphere of the night. In the end we had fed hundreds, but there was still more cookies leftover (almost as if God had multiplied them like the loaves and fish). When the event came to a close, I asked the organizer if I could take the leftovers to a local shelter, she loved that idea.
For me the highlight of that evening wasn't the success of the Art Benefit (though that went specularly well), it was the look on the man's face when I drove up the shelter later that evening and asked if he would like some homemade cookies. Every cookie that Jake had meticulously rolled brought happiness to someone that night, some more than others.
I'm rolling cookie dough for Jake now, and it's a labor that I look forward to seeing the Lord stretch. That the happiness a small cookie can bring will reach far beyond just the person who eats it. I think of how the funds from the bake sale will be supporting Jake, that the work that he's about will bless a people, and how those healthy individuals will spread the blessing. That's what's possible when we give our labors to the Lord. He's able to use them far beyond a simple act of rolling out a ball of dough.
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