Patience

Here's the thing, sometimes I get into these cooking/baking moods and nothing but an hour or two whipping up something in the kitchen can cure it.  I was in one of these moods yesterday. I was cleaning out the refrigerator when I noticed we had more buttermilk than we could use and some strawberries that needed to be eaten soon.  So of course I decided I need to bake a homeade buttermilk pound cake with sugared strawberries and icecream as topping.  I searched through my mom's plethora of scribbled recipe notes and found my Mamaw's recipe for buttermilk cake (one of my Dad's favorites).  I started getting everything ready to bake and got to it ( donned with my cute baking apron of course).  As I put the cake into the oven, I realized that I needed to cook a nice dinner to go with the cake ( I cook dinner every Monday night ( & some others) because Mom has her college class). I decided to opt for a Southern meal : fried chicken, country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, lima beans and of course sweet tea. (If your wondering why I cooked 2 meats instead of extra vegetables or bread, it's because both younger brothers are on football teams and they need the protein...plus they like meat a lot.) Anyway, before I start frying up everything I can get my hands on, I  wait for the cake to finish baking. I only have to wait 4 more minutes before the timer beeps..but of course I become inpatient. The top of it looked golden brown and it smelled amazing. I opened the oven door and decide to just move it around a little (because it looked like one side was getting browner than another).  Then when the timer beeps 3 minutes later (if only I had waited those 3 measly minutes!) I get the cake out and it immedietely falls....and looks ugly :(  It tasted great, but still looked bad. Anyway the reason why I am writing about what I cooked for dinner last night (besides the fact that I have no friends here to hang out with..and miss my TN friends so much it hurts) is that patience is something that God has been teaching me lately. The times in my life when I have waited..resting in God's hands and knowing He will provide, I have ended up receiving many unexpected blessings..and God (finally) gave me the answers I needed. There have also been times when I didn't wait patiently or wait for God to work and it ended in disaster ( much bigger disasters than a cake falling). I guess I write all this to say ( & remind myself) that there are some things (actually many things) in life that are worth the wait.

Psalm 40:1- "I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry."