Last night, we had our church small group over for dinner. We were planning on celebrating Jason and John's birthdays, so I prepared to make an ice cream cake. After perusing lots of recipes, I finally decided on one and went to work. An hour later, I had my cakes made and they hadn't come apart....yet. I was happy. So i started slabbing on the ice cream. and the rest is...well, from a movie scene. I noticed as I was assembling each layer, freezing it, and assembling another that the cake was lopsided on the plate and the ice cream was oozing everywhere--everywhere except between the actual layers of the cake! The more I tried to fix the problem, the worse it got. I intended to finish was I had started, though, so I kept going and finished it off with the whipped cream icing and stuffed it in the freezer. The end result: lots of melty chocolate ice cream and whipped cream all over my kitchen, my freezer, my body, and my clothes.



I was really devastated, y'al!! I felt so defeated. I was exhausted, too, so I sat on the couch and started on some work for my online job. After about 30 minutes, i thought I'd check on it to see if it was salvageable and all my frozen vegetables had fallen on top of the cake!!!! At this point, i actually laughed. My kitchen was a complete wreck and so was my cake. I rearranged the freezer...again. and left the sugary mess to freeze some more, fully convinced that there was NO WAY i was serving such an unsightly (and obviously flawed) cake to my guests (as if!). I had determined I would just have to make another cake or cupcakes. (Imagine a very huffy, puffy, and determined "me" saying this to myself) After John arrived home, he took a look at the cake and convinced me to serve it anyway. Not only was I so tired already, but after thinking about it more, I saw it as an opportunity to "let go". One opportunity among many...every day. So, I served that lopsided "ice cream-less" ice cream cake. It wasn't the best cake I've ever made, but it was a cake. It had candles on top and tasted sweet.

The Holy Spirit was gently reminding me throughout the night that the cake does not represent me. Just because it was a failure doesn't mean I am a failure. In a funny way, though, the cake actually does represent me....a little lopsided, a little melty at times, but still yummy and sweet on the inside.