Bake the Cake

This past week has been emotionally exhausting for my family and I. We spent half the week in the hospital with our little boy for the third time in 4 months and the other half home recovering. It is by no means as hard as what many families go through in these hospitals and may we cover them in prayer, but it has been weary nonetheless.

As we've been home this weekend trying to keep up on the medicine and healing for our son, I have found myself hitting a wall of exhaustion. This morning I woke up and immediately felt tired for the day ahead. As we were sitting together my husband looked at me and said, "we should bake something today." Honestly, at first I thought there is absolutely no way I have the energy but the more we sat there the thought reminded me how much something as simple as baking can bring peace in the home. Throughout our marriage I have enjoyed baking as a time to be quiet and enjoy creative energy.

As I decided on which recipe to make and started pulling out the ingredients, I could feel a sense of joy fill me from within. When you serve your family, even with something as simple as a cake, there is immense gratification from God. As silly as it sounds, all my life I have found an overflow of comfort in the home through a cake on the counter, clean sheets on the bed, some small detail that brings peace to all who enter.

Our homes are the place where we feel the most of what we're dealt in life. This place is where we laugh, cry, dance, sing to ourselves, grieve, and be the entirety of who we are. When you spend a little more time in the kitchen, the laundry room or the garden, even more so when you don't want to, you'll find a great peace that surrounds your family and home. It's not the cake itself that I'm encouraging you to make.

I believe God gives us little pieces of joy amidst exhaustion, weariness, and our own frustrations that we get to partake in if we choose it. When we take the time to look for the details of comfort around us and follow in pursuit of this call, our families are immensely blessed as a result. God honors the work we do in our home, despite our own exhaustion and He in turn gifts us through it. The little details of baking cake bring much more comfort than the cake itself, it's an act of love that we as family need now more than ever in this hectic world.

I am encouraged to experience Gods love over my life and family. He sustains me on the most tiring of days, and sometimes that is through a warm cake baking in the oven. If I didn't have the gentle nudge to put a little effort in I wouldn't have seen the blessing God fills our home with when we choose to serve our family first. Find your joy that fills you inside your home and share it with your family because it's those little things that carry us through the long days and exhaustion. We need to feel this comfort as we live within these walls but even more so, our family longs to feel this comfort from us as well. May we rest in all the little comforts God has placed before us and may we choose to see them as a gift over our home.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He refreshes my soul..." Psalm 23:2-3