Today is the day that we celebrate the important women in our lives: our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and friends. It’s a day that can be filled with joy for some and for others it’s a day filled with the painful reminders of what is not, what may never be, or what never was to begin with. For me, it’s a bit of both, but I want to celebrate the two women who hold a very important place in my heart. Today, as I bask in the flood of hugs and kisses from my two precocious little boys, I am mindful of the other two little ones who are not here, and my mother and grandmother who went before them and cradle them while I cannot. These two women – strong, loving, courageous, and kind – are who have filled my thoughts for the last few days.
So many memories! In thinking about my grandma, one of my favorite memories, I have to admit, is of her pies. My grandmother made THE BEST pies I have ever had! Mmmmm…Pie! Apple, rhubarb, pumpkin, chocolate cream, and my personal favorite – her luscious lemon meringue. Ahhh, just the thought of it gives me goose bumps! I used to love watching her roll out the pie crust, enjoying the tangy scent of fresh squeezed lemon juice, and watching as flat, slimy, unappetizing egg whites whipped into lovely mountains of soft white meringue. And then the tantalizing aroma as it baked. Drool (Pardon me while I dry off my keyboard). I have never been able to find a lemon meringue pie that tastes like Grandma’s did. In fact, I have probably been thinking about it too much because I have started drawing parallels to life and faith…in PIE. If you know me well, you know I tend to do this (the making parallels thing, not obsessing over pie). So, here are some of my thoughts…
“But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.” ~ Isaiah 64:8 (ESV)
I’ve always thought this was such beautiful picture – God as the Potter and us as the clay. I think sometimes though, He’s the Baker, and what He makes of us is determined by what we give Him to work with. As humans we are fallible, we make mistakes. Life throws us curve balls. Sometimes, it beats us down. But here’s the beautiful thing about the Master Baker. He isn’t fazed by anything. He’s not surprised. He doesn’t make mistakes. Better yet, He can take any ingredients presented to Him and turn them into something wonderful! The key is that the ingredients have to be presented.
Consider my grandma’s lemon meringue pie, for example. If I invited her over to make a pie at my house, but decided that I would only let her have certain ingredients or gave her restrictions on how the ingredients could be used, our pie making session would be cut extremely short.
If there were no flour, there would be no base to hold everything together. The dry times in our lives are sometimes like that. So parched and crumbling. But like the flour, it provides the perfect base. When you cut in the shortening, until it’s evenly dispersed and then add a little water, the crust comes together. When we take the dry in us and let the oil of the Holy Spirit work into our lives and refresh us with living water, we find He holds us together. We find purpose.
What about the eggs? What if they were missing? Or better yet, I declared that they needed to be used whole. If the shells did not break, there could be no meringue. Sometimes we need to allow our shells – the masks, the walls, the separations we protect so fiercely to keep us from being vulnerable – to break in the Baker’s hands. We need to be the raw, vulnerable, messy material that He can work with. We have to surrender to be broken. And he takes our rawness and breathes His life into it, turning it into something beautiful.
Or how about the lemons? Maybe I would like to omit them altogether because they’re much too messy or just too sour. Maybe I don’t want them cut open or what’s inside to spill out. But, if the lemons were not squeezed, there would be no juice. If there were no lemon juice, the pie would be flat and unappealing. There would be nothing to give it depth. So, even the salty tears we have shed, the bitter regrets, the painful, bruised moments when it feels our very life has been wrung from us – sometimes because awful things happen in life and sometimes because of the wrong choices we have made – even those the Maker can turn into something rich and full.
And that is the beauty of our brokenness.
What’s more, He takes it all and turns it into something that gives off an aroma that is so appealing it draws others. You have to admit, the smell of a freshly baked pie is very hard to resist. And you know what’s better than one pie? Lots of pies! Can you imagine what would happen with a whole group of people gathered together, living lives that give off the sweet aroma of Christ’s Love? Who could stay away? John Wesley once said “Catch on fire and others will love to come watch you burn.” People will come, even if just out of curiosity. And when people sample a delicious pie, they don’t praise the pie – they praise the Baker. That is what our lives can be. Psalm 34:8 says “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” Most of the time a person’s first “taste” of Christ is through us. Shouldn’t that taste reflect Who He is? Our life isn’t supposed to just be about us, it’s about Him. And in making it about Him, He is the one that transforms us and holds us together. And not only that, He also shines through to the world around us.
“I remember your sincere and unqualified faith [the surrendering of your entire self to God in Christ with confident trust in His power, wisdom and goodness, a faith] which first lived in [the heart of] your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am confident that it is in you as well.” ~ 2 Timothy 1:5 (AMP)
In this passage, the Apostle Paul is writing to Timothy and he mentions the legacy of faith that Timothy’s mother and grandmother passed down to him. My mother and grandmother may not have had easy lives, but they lived lives of faith regardless. They lived lives given over to the Baker’s hand. They made a practice of giving Him the ugly and allowing Him to make it into something beautiful. That is what I remember. Even in the midst of trying circumstances, I saw them cling to Jesus all the more tightly. And that is the legacy that they left behind.
Some of the very last words that my mom said to me were “For me to live is Christ”. I say she said these words, but they were shakily scrawled on a piece of paper because the cancer had robbed her of her strength to speak. Even in the dark of those final hours, when her strength failed and she was wracked with constant pain, she proclaimed Christ. Similarly, during the last few days I spent with my grandma, she expressed to me just how much she was longing to see her Saviour. In the dark cloud of the depression that covered every day, Christ was the Hope that she hung on to. I have so many memories of mom and grandma, but these parting words are some of the most poignant. And now that legacy of faith has left it’s mark.
So on this Mother’s Day, when our emotions may be tugged in a million different directions, where the past may be painful and our future is uncertain, and the responsibilities of life rest hard on our shoulders, we can be encouraged that in the hands of the Baker, we can have a life of “pie”. A life that’s shaped by His hands – that can turn anything, no matter how awful, into something new. That’s what I want. To live a life of surrender and faith and hope, where Jesus’ Love and Life shines through what He has made of mine. To stay in that place of giving all the “ingredients” of my life into His hands. To live a life that makes others look at the Maker, not what was made. Where even after my “pie” is complete and I am gone, it leaves behind the aroma of Christ. Just like my mom and grandma did.
Of Shattered Things 