Mom's Holiday Baking

My mother was a great baker and she really excelled during the holidays.  I can remember helping her in the kitchen for two or three days preparing the cakes and pies and cookies she would make.

It was a simple plan.  She mixed, measured, baked and iced and I washed dishes.  Mom would move from one recipe to another without stopping, so my job was to have each utensil, each dish washed, dried and back in place before she needed it again.

She worked and I worked.

I was so busy doing my part that I didn't realize exactly how much she was working.  The results were wonderful pumpkin and pecan pies, chocolate pies, German Chocolate cakes, Banana pudding (if she knew "the boys" would be coming because, as she said, "That's their favorite.")  There would be other wonderful desserts that I am sure I have forgotten in the almost 40 years since I left home.

The holiday baking wasn't a "me" or a "she" but a "we."  Now, be certain of one thing, my mother did not need my help in the kitchen.  I was probably more of a hindrance to her in the beginning than a help.  But she let me participate in the process because it was good for me.

The same dynamic applies to our Christian lives.  The Lord Jesus set the pattern by how He lived His earthly life.  He lived every moment in obedience to His Father, confessing that nothing He did was by Himself, but of the Father  

"But Jesus answered them, 

'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 

 John 5:17.

By the same token, we do not live independently once we have accepted Christ as our Savior, we live by Him.  He works in and through us and we work by Him.  It is no longer a "me" but a "we."  He doesn't need us to help with the work, but He knows the work is good for us to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18.)

As we live our lives, let us remember that even when it seems it is just "me" working, that Christ is working in and through us to strengthen us, to empower us, to guide us each step of the way.  

"I am crucified with Christ:  nevertheless I live;

 yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  

and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." 

 Galatians 2:20.