When it comes to baking, I’m a crazed, mad scientist in the kitchen. No space is left empty. Sugar, flour, chocolate, butter cover every counter I have! Within that chaos of confectionery delights are these beautiful cookies waiting to be devoured. UNLESS you are my family…
These cookies, created with my hard work and time, are not for my family. Nope. They are for company! Company receives the fruits of my labor.
My family? They get the “broken cookies!” That’s right! If a cookie is broken, burnt, shattered or not up to standard, my family may partake. I place those cookies on a special plate just for them.
I was threatening my family one day as cookies were coming out of the oven as I chatted with a friend. She said, “What? They get the ‘ugly’ cookies! That’s so unfair!”
Unfair but true!
It got me to thinking about how sometimes we feel life serves us up the broken, tattered and torn cookies--those not worthy of the fancy Pier One plate. The broken cookies are cast to the side and looked upon with disdain.
We often go out into our communities and avert our eyes from those who are broken and cast-off. We can’t bear to give them our time or our attention. And there are those times when we feel we are the broken and unworthy.
While my family receives menacing looks while I am baking, they happily bound into the kitchen and chomp down on the broken cookies. My husband swears sometimes they taste better, and there are cooking escapades when the broken outnumber the pretty.
Who do we miss by passing by the broken? Who do we NOT see when we can’t bear to look those who fall short of our standards?
I am grateful for a God who sees the beauty of my heart even when I feel broken, tattered and incomplete. It is God who puts the pieces of me together and creates a new, perfect being. Thank you God for your vision. Open my eyes so I may view others that way as well.
That said, my family still gets the broken cookies…I have to draw the line somewhere!