What is Essential?

Our college freshman texted and asked for a care package with a batch of our family’s chocolate chip cookies.  What a sweet request! (no pun intended)  There was one problem: I didn’t have anything I needed to bake them for him.  All of my kitchen is packed in boxes while we are in transition!

Three weeks have passed since his sweet request.  What self-respecting mother waits three weeks to send her son cookies?!

Battling discouragement because of our self-inflicted nomadic life style, I determined to send him homemade cookies.  I set off to buy the ingredients, the basic tools and bake a batch of cookies.  How hard could that be?  I’ve baked them at least once a month for 14 years for heaven’s sake!

No recipe. No baking utensils. No ingredients.  I was up for the challenge.

You might simply use the Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag.  That’s straightforward.  But he wanted our family recipe.  Which is in a box, within a box, in a storage unit.  So I had to shop from memory.

There’s a story about the recipe (aren’t family recipes like that?).  Years ago our oldest son took a cooking class and was challenged to make a significant change to said Toll House recipe and see if the results were edible.  He did and they were and continue to be.  We call the recipe Matthew’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.  No other cookies will do in our house.

Do you have a recipe memorized?  I wasn’t sure if I did.  But I was bound and determined to give it my best.

Here’s how they turned out.  They don’t look like they normally do.

Was it the missing ingredient? (compared with Toll House I left out one thing!)

Or was it the missing gas oven and Pampered Chef stoneware and cookie scoop?

Or was it more than one thing?

What’s the excuse?

We sacrificed our Vegan diet to taste test before mailing.

Texture was different but flavor was yummy.

I mailed them today; the jury is still out on how they really turned out.

 

I almost let the discouragement and frustration with my circumstances keep me from making every effort to bless someone I love dearly.

Does that happen to you? Do you let one thing keep you from taking the step to bless someone?

Your house isn’t as clean as you’d like it so you don’t invite the new neighbor over for coffee.

You’re too busy to bake for your family so it’s store bought again.

I was faced with the question: what is essential?  Will my son stop loving me if the cookies aren’t like he expected them?

Maybe.

Hopefully not.

What is essential in the big scheme of life?  (I like to ask myself this question to keep me from spinning out of control)

How you answer that question may be different for you than me, but knowing what is essential is the journey of the spiritual life.  I know of these two sisters who initially had different answers to the question of what is essential.

True confession: I am like Martha.  I try to be like Mary.  Really I do.  But I get worried and bothered by so many things…

Like whether or not I have the right tools to bake a batch of cookies.  It was enough to make me cry.  Then I heard Jesus’s words in my ear…

Lisa, Lisa, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is important… slow down and be with Jesus.  That stopped me in my tracks.  Being with Jesus is my answer to what is essential.  Being with Him first makes all the rest of the stuff get in the proper place; after Jesus.

Letting go of what I think is essential and taking on what Jesus knows is essential is a daily transformation.  A challenge for sure. But so worth the effort!

Oh and about those cookies.  What do you think is one ingredient that can be left out and they’ll still turn out ok?  Let me know your answer in the comments!