Life is Like ... Cookies!

Becoming an "older woman" is still weird for me.  I forget that when I chat cheerfully with students, in their 20's, they are not relating to me as their peer.   They are looking at me as an aunt, a mother, someone  ... older.  Ouch.

However, with age comes great freedom.  When I was in my 20's, I found it often hard to feel comfortable in my own skin.  I was still trying to figure out who I was and what my place in the world looked like.  I was seeking ... someone older ... to come alongside me and help guide me along life's highway.  I needed, I wanted, a mentor.

As God in His plan would have it, I am now that person ... that older someone who has been given a fine opportunity to come alongside younger women ... to help them along life's highway.  I'm a mentor.

What I love is that mentoring looks different everyday and with every girl.  I formally "mentor" two young women.  Then, I "informally" mentor several.  All come from different backgrounds, different economic status', different religious viewpoints.  My job is not to convince them that I have all the answers ... I don't (despite me wanting my children to think I do!).  My job is to help guide, to share life, to infuse my bits of experience from another standpoint, and to be a good mirror of what a loving Father God desires for these young women to know, to learn ... to be.  Some know this God of mine.  Some do not.  I've been given a wonderful purpose:  to increase their knowledge on a head and heart level of who they are and how much they are loved by their Creator.

This week, I hosted a cookie making class.  As we beat eggs, measured sugar, and burned the last batch ... I was able to share my love, my heart, my baking ability (or lack thereof since we burnt the last batch).  I was also able to share with them how the beauty of baking fits into the beauty of life.  Each ingredient we added to our dough, by itself, is just an individual component.  Yet, when added together, when beaten, chopped, and blended together with the other bits, mesh together to make a yummy result:  a cookie.

Let the beating begin!

Peanut butter Cookies in the oven

Chopping chocolate for chocolate chips

More chopping for more chocolate chips

A good friend always cleans up the dishes!

Without sounding all Forrest Gump ... life is like a cookie.  Life has ingredients that when added to the whole of our experience makes beautiful results.  When I look at the times in my life when there was beating or chopping (unpleasant things or circumstances) I tend to want to forget or dismiss those elements.  Yet, when lived side by side with the good times (the sugar, the vanilla) ... it all blends together into an experience that works ... if I let it ... together for my good.  The bitter, the sweet, the needed, the important ... they all work together to make a life that is planned for my good ... and to be shared.

We shared our cookies over tea and great conversation.  The baking soda no longer was bitter ... the sugar was not overwhelming.  All parts blended into one delicious cookie.  And when eaten together with a friend ... beautiful.