(Written on Monday, January 22, 2024)
The temperatures are rising. Ice and snow are thawing. Mail is being delivered. Traffic is moving. A semblance of normalcy is returning.
If I were still teaching (either private piano or public school music), I would be feverishly scheduling make-up lessons and shuffling lesson plans and rehearsal schedules. But, I'm not. That was another lifetime.
Instead, I'll have to admit that last week was something of a bonus time. Nothing that had been previously planned happened, but lots of nice things did happen. Uninterrupted talks with Steve over breakfast. Time to pray, think, blog, write, and read. Guilt-free afternoon naps. Trying new recipes. Snuggling up under blankets at night watching Auburn play basketball or solving the puzzles on "Wheel of Fortune." :) Hallelujah, the power stayed on, and none of our pipes froze.
We did, however, have a few moments of hilarity in the kitchen last Saturday that helped me realize, yet again, another God lesson.
I had all the ingredients laid out for three new recipes to have for our lunch. We were going to try a new Hot Chicken Salad Dish, I was going to replicate a salad we had in a restaurant in Natchitoches before Christmas, and we were going to add some Quick Potato Rolls. Background music was playing. I was in a great mood.
Then, just as I finished making a Lemon Poppyseed Dressing for the salad, some horrible back spasms hit me, and I was seeing stars. I called Steve in from his study and asked if he'd be willing to help me. He quickly put aside what he was doing and started chopping and mixing. I should have kept my "I'm so grateful" feelings in place, but no. In just a few minutes, Control Freak Wife and Stubborn Mule Husband showed up. It happened when Steve was trying to get a cup of mayonnaise out of the jar using a knife. A knife. There I was sitting on a padded chair at the kitchen table watching his efforts, and instead of just "letting it go," I suggested rather loudly that a spoon would be a better choice. He gave me one of those looks which told me in a milli-second that I had crossed a line. He was going to do it his way.
He then proceeded to do ALL of the mixing of ingredients for that Hot Chicken Salad WITH A KNIFE, mostly to prove to me that it could indeed be done. Now that I think about it, he has had much more experience with knife-like tools than I have -- such as the scalpel he uses constantly when he performs surgeries on animals, for example. At that time, though, it seemed ludicrous to me that he continued through the whole process with that knife when perfectly good spoons were just inches away. I had to laugh.
The spasms subsided, so he took the recipe for the rolls to complete on his own, and I chopped and arranged the salad. When we were each working independently, no friction showed up. The meal was delicious, by the way.
(Photos from a cooking class we attended in Greenwood, MS in 2019)
I've thought about that a lot in the days since. Doesn't God get exasperated with me when I insist on doing things MY way? Many times He has another way, another path, another route for getting me to the place He wants me to be, but I chafe and keep insisting that my way is better. How arrogant of me. How ungrateful of me. His ways have often looked different from my ways, but His ways have never failed to be the best ones for me, in that situation, at that time. Will I ever learn?
Isaiah 55:8-9 -- "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways."
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