Cairns ~ Ultimately ... Cake

On Monday I enjoyed a whole hour and a half by myself in Panera with a mug of coffee, a newspaper (not a common thing in my bag), my planner, my Bible, and my computer. Just an hour 1/2, you say? It was pure pleasure to wander through the various pages and let the Lord show me how they link up from the ancient to the daily to the local to the inspired and back again.

It wasn't my intention, but I overheard a really loud man in striped pants two tables over giving a long speech to underlings about how vulnerable their jobs are. He spoke fear into them and insured them they need to impress others this week with how indispensable they are. The woman looked like she would cry; the man looked like he needed a Tums. My heart went out to them, and I didn't trust or like that boss in striped pants who took calls while his employees dangled anxiously. (His striped pants looked a lot like a prison uniform.) The two must've walked away wondering, "Why?"

When I my daughter told me she's in a class of 45 for Algebra, I said (among other things :) ), "Why?" When was the last time you absorbed something distasteful and found yourself asking, "Why?" If you sent a child off to school, kindergarten all the way through college, they may've come home asking their own "Why?" about hard circumstances or those that seem unfair. It's a question we ask all of our lives, though the severity of subjects vary greatly from why ice cream melts and slides off a cone to why we have Algebra to why we lose a job we've worked hard to keep to why we sometimes find ourselves feeling overcome by even bigger things of life. A friend exhorted me with a story recently, and it just fits this season of back to school CAIRNS and Titanic size national deficits and all the stuff somewhere in between (and with the new deficit predictions, there's a LOT in between!). Let me share ...

Sometimes we wonder, "What did I do to deserve this?" or "Why did God have to do this to me?" Here is a wonderful explanation!

A daughter is telling her Mother how everything is going wrong; she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her, and her best friend is moving away. Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, "Absolutely Mom. I love your cake."

"Here, have some cooking oil," her Mother offers.

"Yuck," says her daughter.

"How about a couple raw eggs?"

"Gross Mom!"

"Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?"

"Mom, those are all yucky!"

To which the mother replies: "Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake."

God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful."

A young student long ago experienced a lot of events that were hard to swallow, but in looking back later, he saw the "cake." Joseph said ...

Genesis 50:20

²⁰ You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Make a cake, share a CAIRN,