Devotional Thought for the day!

I recently received a new little devotional for Christmas from my grandparents. It's called "In the Kitchen With God." (Honor Books Publishing). I do have a love for cooking, so this little book fit me well. I'm only partway through (pg. 16), but am already enjoying the little thoughts given. I hope to pass a few of these along to you as well.

This one is called "Apple Pie Problems":


Peel. Core. Season. Mix. The steps for making Marilyn's favorite apple pie rolled from her fingertips without a pause. The piecrust lay trimmed and ready in the pie pan, awaiting the seasoned filling. Everything looked just fine. Yet as she added a sprinkling of walnuts and placed the top crust in position, a heavy sigh escaped from her lips.

It was probably a good thing that this was a familiar recipe. Marilyn's mind was not on the the pie but rather on a troubled relationship with a close friend. No matter how she tried to solve the problem, things only seemed to grow worse. "What do I do now?" She wondered.

As she slid the pie into the oven, Marilyn remembered a speaker at a seminar who encouraged her listeners to keep a prayer journal. The speaker said she usually prayed aloud as she wrote her concerns in a journal, and that simple exercise clarified her problems and helped her keep track of God's answers.

Marilyn picked up a blank book she had been given for Christmas. Sitting at the kitchen table, she began to write a letter to God, pouring out her heart and her hurt about this troubled relationship. Before she knew it, the oven timer sounded, and she sniffed the familiar warm scent of apples filling the room. She closed the cover on several pages of scrawled script.

Surprisingly, her heart felt lighter. She was struck by the similarity between the pie and the prayer journal. Wrapped between two piecrusts and left to time and the work of the oven, the apples were still apples, but their taste and texture had changed from tart and crisp to sweet and smooth. In the same way, Marilyn had wrapped her concerns between the covers of prayer. As she set the pie on top of the stove, God reassured her that all she needed was to give Him time to work. He would change that soured relationship and make things sweet again.