How Cookies Apply to My Life (And Yours Too)

I was so glad to make it to MOPS yesterday. Last time my second daughter had a fever (story of my life it seems...). So I showered for you all and showed up clean, dressed and high on the anticipation of adult company.

I've been on a weird (when I say weird I mean horrible) diet lately: no sugar, no wheat.  So when our lovely speaker, Deby Turnrose, started talking about cookies I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Were we really going to talk about the history of the chocolate chip cookie? How did this apply to me? Not only was I living life "sans cookie," I was also really needing a good Mom-to-Mom talking to -- you know?

But then it happened. She started talking to me, not about cookies, but about life. And metaphors. And being an English major myself, I do speak her language quite well.

Deby took us through the ingredients of the cookie, some of the clever "metaphorical" aspects of each ingredient: the flour is the "blah" stuff, it just needs to be there; the sugar is the sweet stuff in life; the eggs are God (3 in one, get it??) Who binds everything in our lives together; the vanilla is the cool stuff -- the creative parts of life, the "extra"something that makes the day worth facing (that's my take on it at least).

But what really made me nod my head in agreement was her take on the salt. Salt is the bitter, sour, ugly things in life. The happenings that make us ask "why??" and maybe challenge our faith at its core.   The things we are certain life could do without. Or could it...?

Deby shared some parts of her life experience with us so openly and graciously, and I was awed by how God took this girl with some really hard stuff to deal with, and turned her into a woman who is clever and bright and talented and has a really wacky sense of humor. I laughed quite a bit, as I'm sure did you.

And so the salt is necessary in the chocolate chip cookie. It makes the sugar sweeter, so our speaker says.

If Deby can say that, then I will try to accept it. It's hard to accept, isn't it? Do the stupid, ugly, "salty" things really need to be in my life? In my past? Or would erasing those experiences only erase something that makes life more beautiful? Am I better for those things? Are you?

The topic definitely leaves us with some food for thought. And Deby left us with cookies...is that a metaphor?