before the fall

I lived out a saying Tuesday night. Pride comes before the fall. And the fall comes fast and hard. Very hard.

Tuesday night was the Orienteering group Agape Feast. A time to come together, worship through singing, reading scripture, eating a Mediterranean meal and taking communion together. The evening was focused on the prophesies of Christ's coming in the Old Testament and then reading in the New Testament of how those prophesies came true through Christ's birth, death and ressurection. It was an amazing, amazing time of reflection, celebration, worship and fellowship.

Ed and I were in charge of bringing a bean dish, dessert, bread and olives. Bread was bought, hummus became the bean dish, canned olives were purchased and baklava and pirouettes were ready to go on the plates.

With being the only one bringing desserts, I wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone, and an assortment in case some people did not enjoy nuts (in the baklava0. So onto the internet I hopped and found some Jewish dessert recipes. Babka (bread with a filling in the middle, rolled up like a jelly roll), apple turnovers and cinnamon twists. Everything was on schedule. Bread was rising, dough was chilling in the refrigerator and the oven and I were ready to tackle all the food. I was excited. Excited to see how everything would turn out. Visions of how the home-made apple turnovers would look, dressed in their drizzled glaze. How the cinnamon twists would be with their sugar coatings on, looking pretty lined up next to each other. How everyone would oooo and ahhhh over the creations and I would feel good that I made something worthy of a large number of people to eat.

Come about 4:30, I started on the turnovers. Apples were peeled, sliced and diced ready to become stuffing. Little did I know that the person who wrote the recipe did not include all ingredients or state at what the turnovers should bake at. My eyes were all stars when I first read it, amazed at how easy it sounded. This should've been a red flag, but nope. I just continued on. Thankfully my mom was home, so many phone calls were made. It helps that she's been a baker for years! :) I ended up making 5 turnovers that turned out to be blobs with big holes on the top. Frustration level started to rise.

Cinnamon twists were rolled out and twisted, on the cookie sheets ready to go after the blobs came out of the oven. Not putting two and two together, the twists were actually cookies, not like taco bell cinnamon twists. So when they were taken off the cookie sheet, they all broke because they were too long and thin.

By the time I left for church, my frustration level was beyond compacity. I was driving with broken cinnamon twists, no apple turn overs and hopes that the babka turned out as it was on a cooling sheet in the back seat.

It wasn't until later, while singing and finally being able to take a deep breath that God revealed to me how prideful I had been. How I had been making all the food for my own glorification instead of just to be enjoyed by others, no matter what it turned out like. It's obvious now that the food didn't turn out for a reason. A reason called a lesson.

It was a hard lesson. A hard lesson learned a hard way with a hard fall. And you know what? Not one person noticed the broken cookies or missed the blob turnovers. The evening was a huge success and my flubbed up desserts did not make or break the evening. They were just used as an instrument to break my pride.