{Site currently under construction. Grace for my mess?}

Monday, July 25, 2011

Nothing. Something. Miracle.

I’d forgotten how much I love baking.


 Busy hands and a busy mind -- stress and anxiety and fretting about things to come – had kept me from it mostly since I’ve been here.  A birthday cake here and there, a batch of mix-box cupcakes, a quick glazed little number when company arrives… but that little white tin of baking powder sits mostly untouched these days, especially after my stand-mixer went on the fritz last November.

Tonight, there was quiet – if not in my home, then at least internally – and here I am reunited with this former flame, inspired again by granulated sugar and berry-stained lips and the magic that happens when the elements clash and the fiery heat is applied.


There is peace here, tonight.  It smells like warm blueberry cake and crème fraiche with fresh strawberries and tastes like enchantment, and rolling berry pulp around my tongue I can’t help but awe anew at the miracle of seeds and dirt and sun that collide into this – a strawberry!  A cantaloupe!  A tangerine! 

Miracle, I say, and nothing less.


And, too, it seems miraculous to me this chemical reaction we call baking happens at all, and perhaps that’s why I love it so.  It is creation, a very ode to our Maker, to toss in a bit of white powder with more white powder, and with a little help from the animal kingdom (or an improvisation thereof), throw in a splash of this and a crack of that, and whip it all up together in a glass dish, subject to extreme temperature, and there we have it… something beautiful and succulent is born.


So we feast with our eyes and our mouths and our tongues are transported and hearts are lifted and bellies are filled, and this, too, is miracle.  Before there was nothing, and now there’s something… and it’s miraculous.  And so goes all types of creativity, it seems. 

There isn’t, and then there is, and it is good. 


And it is the Creation Story again and again playing out in our breakfast and work days and knitting and speaking and singing and loving and painting and scratching out this chicken scratch for the world to see – Nothing. Something. Miracle.


It is Monday and another week I am blessed to count blessings, to slow and recognize all these miracles in all their forms:

- A whole house smelling of blueberry cake and strawberries.
- My husband, serving this week on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic.
- A fruitful answer to a long-ago desperate prayer.
- So much wonderful encouragement from fellow bloggers.
- The delicious anticipation of a girls’ getaway with a friend I haven’t seen in way too long.
- A sense of taste.
- A surprise greeting card arriving by mail today from a pretty amazing guy I know.  Return address?  “Left side of the bed”.  Guess who it was from? *wink*
- This week, less talking, more writing.
- Little Caleb, climbing up in bed with me in the wee hours for just a quiet closeness we both must have needed.
- Redefining home and the painful process that brings me so readily to my knees.
- Canteloupe and tangerines and all the delicious miracles that fill our kitchen.   



*Update:  After this post went up, I got a call from my amazing mother-in-law, letting me know that they were passing down my husband's great-grandmother's sorta-heirloom Kitchen Aid stand mixer down to me.  She hadn't read this post, but it was a timely gift, fitting for what I had just shared here hours before. Love when things like that happen, don't you?  Little ways that God wraps His arms around us with the grown-up equivalent of a surprise treat.  *smiles* 

8 comments:

  1. Great list and what a cute site you have!

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  2. "And it is the Creation Story again and again playing out in our breakfast and work days and knitting and speaking and singing and loving and painting and scratching out this chicken scratch for the world to see – Nothing. Something. Miracle." I <3 these lines!!! beautiful life.

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  3. I absolutely LOVE these lines! Nothing. Something. Miracle!

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  4. "And it is the Creation Story again and again playing out in our breakfast and work days and knitting and speaking and singing and loving and painting and scratching out this chicken scratch for the world to see – Nothing. Something. Miracle." I <3 these lines!!! beautiful life.

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  5. Thanks Amy. It is striking me lately how much those every day miracles tend to slip right past - but oh, those are the real gifts of this life, aren't they? Thanks for stopping by!

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  6. Thanks Jodi for your sweet comments. Isn't it wonderful to experience God in the little things?

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  7. Thanks Court!

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Your comments are such an encouragement. Thank you for sharing your valuable words.