Mix it Up

By Nancy B. Gibbs

I got up early this morning to bake a pound cake. I’ve used this recipe probably 100 times. I can always find it in my trusted cookbook by the discolored pages where I have spilled milk, butter and flour on the recipe.

It dawned on me this morning that life is somewhat like baking a cake. The recipe told me to start out creaming the butter and shortening. Then I was to add the ingredients, a portion at a time. “Here goes a little flour” I said. Then I added an egg. Next was a scoop of sugar, and then about an eighth of a cup of buttermilk. All the while, my mixer was humming and working to its heart ‘s content.

As I mixed it all up, I noticed how smooth the batter was. I’d be surprised if you could just dump everything in a bowl at one time and then start mixing. My mind was going in circles much like my mixer. It was 5:00 am. Where’s the coffee?

Where am I going with this? Our lives are much like this pound cake. If we put too much fun into it and leave out the work, we fall short on payday. If we work too hard and never have any fun, we burn out quickly. We need to alternate our work days just as I had to alternate putting the ingredients in my bowl.

If we don’t spend time cleaning our house, dust bunnies attack the furniture. If we spend too much time sweeping and mopping we find ourselves on the sofa taking a much-needed nap.

I sometimes find myself neglecting some things and spending too much time on others. Like my cake recipe, we need to alternate our activities each day.

We all need a little bit of adventure at times and God knows our work constantly calls out our name. So grab your calendar. Spill a little fun activities on a day. Maybe a picnic could fit well between work days. And how about a husband/wife weekend getaway. Putting a little fun in the mix makes our marriage run smoothly. Like my batter was so smooth our relationships could be too!

Another thing that helped my cake was sifting the flour. (Getting the lumps out.) We certainly need to sift out the lumps from our home/marriage. If we don’t, the lumps can be the beginning of a breakup.

Life is truly like making a cake. Add a little bit here and put a lot of God there and we will be blessed. We can be sure that God’s presence is the absolute best ingredient of all. We can be happy if we will add every ingredient in life alternately. And always make God the icing on the cake.