Cakes, Faith, And Life

I have a wedding cake due in a week.

Usually having a wedding cake on the horizon causes a mild, week-long anxiety attack for me. I don't have a large facility to do cakes in, it's just me, my humble (but most appreciated) kitchen, my small but functional stash of tools, and my deep love for all things sugary. It's stressful up to the moment the cake is on the table looking all perfect, cause the last thing I want to do is mess up someone's wedding cake. It's kind of a big day for them. And while I'm confident in my abilities, it's just me. If something goes wrong I don't have a team of decorators and a commercial kitchen to help me fix anything.

This week, I'm not worried at all. Even though life in general has been nuts and I may or may not have broken down crying at least once every 3 days, I feel calm and confident about this week and this cake. I don't know what changed, but I'm actually looking forward to it.

I love making cakes for others. It's almost become taboo for a lot of people to use sweets as comfort food, but for me, giving someone a treat to brighten their day completely makes mine. It's a simple thing, and probably most people really don't get it, but in my mind, cupcakes=nurture.

Enought about food. Speaking about life being nuts... I don't need to go into rambling details, but the last few weeks have been hard. There have been a few days where I wanted to give up all together on the challenges ahead of me, but I refuse to. I know I can make it through and the feeling of triumph I'll feel as I look back is gonna make it all worth it. But I must say how something really brightened in me when a friend took me aside and told me simply that he knew I could do it. That I am good at what I do and I'm not going to fail.

It meant a lot. I can pep talk myself over and over, but after a while it becomes less of an inspiration and more of a coping mechanism. "(monotone voice) I can do this. I can do this.".. But when someone else looks me in the eye and says I'm not gonna fail, it really bolsters my confidence. It's energizing. I CAN do this.

On a more serious note. Something my pastor said today really cut to my core. It's simple enough, but really busted through some of the defenses (excuses) I've been using lately to justify the unfamiliar journey my life has become lately. He said this - "What you believe isn't what you SAY you believe. What you believe is what you DO". Seems a little obvious, but when I heard that I instantly felt it cutting to my core. I've been living in a way that I've never lived before - letting myself think that God isn't relevant for me anymore, that I've seen too many unexplainable things and too many Christians treating each other in crappy terrible ways, to believe that I really need to devote my life to him anymore. That I can live a "good person" kind of life and that's enough. Telling myself that because I say in my heart that I'm a Christian and I talk to God occasionally I'm doing alright.

What I realized is that my actions are saying something other than what I'm claiming with my mouth. My actions say that I can handle life on my own, that I can figure out my own way from here on. That God and Christians have let me down enough, already, just let me muddle though from here without setting any expectations that are inevitably going to fall short, without trusting anyone else, human or divine.

I say I still have faith and that I believe, but my actions say that I don't.

This scared me, frankly. It still kinda does. Where exactly DO I stand in all this? I can't imagine a life in which God is completely out of the picture. It sounds bleak and desperate. But I can no longer imagine living the life I lived for the past few years - one in which church and all its functions were all I lived for.

I'm not good at balance. It's usually all or nothing for me, which doesn't often end up well. I absolutely have to find the correct balance in trusting God and doing the things He would have me do in my life, without becoming a religious automaton that can't even explain why she believes the things she does. I can't just blindly do "churchy" things and expect that I'm earning my way to a blissful eternity.

The thing is, eternity is a gift. I can't earn it regardless of what I do. It's been granted to me by a gracious Father simply because I trusted and believed in the sacrifice that was made for me to have access to that gift. Of course, I want to think that my good life and generous deeds have something to do with it, but the fact is, they don't.

The good deeds should be a symptom, a natural overflowing of a life that's filled to the brim with friendship with God. We become like those we admire, that we spend time with. We don't do good to earn God's love, we do good because His love for us is too great for us to contain, it has to spill out.

Not to say that only those that follow Christ do good in the world. There are many people doing many amazing and impactful things to better the world, and who claim to have no relationship with God, and no need for one. The difference is the limit. They can only give until they have no more human capacity to give. Christians are just funnels. We can pour out love on the world as long as we remain open to do so, and in contact with the source of love, God.

Weird. I just start typing and all these thought start pouring out. I hope they make sense and that I'm not coming across as a religious weirdo.

Cause I'm not. I'm messed up. I am the farthest thing from perfect that you can imagine. Sometimes I don't even try to be good cause I'm weary and frustrated. Cause I feel like it doesn't matter how good I am, or how much I try. I'm not trying to be depressing, just truthful. I'm human and messed up and so, so, hard on myself. A friend recently told me I have to start giving myself a little more grace and I just started bawling. I desperately want grace. I feel like nothing I do is good enough and that I'll never, never measure up. I want to feel like I'm worthy of the love that God has given me.

But I don't have to. The beauty of it all is that I never have been and I never will be worthy of His love, but He gives it anyway, unfailingly. He loves me when I'm at church singing and when I'm so angry and beaten down by life that I throw a book down on a counter and curse. He loves me when I'm giving a dollar to a homeless man and when I've completely given up.

I am who I am, and I have gone through the things I have gone through, so that I can connect with the people in my life and show them a little bit about a God who loves the unloveable. The desperate. He loves those who fear, those who put all their faith in themselves, those who've been let down by the church and walked away. Those who don't care either way, and those that hate Him.

This won't resolve overnight, this conflict within me. But I have a little more resolve today to just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Cause what do we do? We swim.