Right on the heels of my great crock pot cook-off victory, tonight I attempted to make dinner for my hungry little family. We had a snow day today, and we topped off a great, relaxing day at home with breakfast for dinner.
I seriously should have been able to pull that off with no problem. But, for whatever reason, I struggled to put pancakes, eggs, and bacon on the table. Everything I was working on during the course of the meal prep seemed to be going wrong. And, Adelade stood next to me and watched.
She is ten years old, and she could’ve watched me limp my way through the cooking with an air of judgment. She has seen women cook who really know how, and she knows the difference between experienced and wobbly cooking. She could’ve pointed out all of the ways that I was messing up our meal. She could’ve even made fun of my ugly pancakes and the eggs that I stirred right out of the pan.
But, she didn’t.
Instead, she said she wanted to watch me make the food so that she could learn how to make it. She encouraged me while I flipped burned pancakes. She told me that they looked delicious. And, she never once suggested that the meal was a bit of a failure.
She had no way of knowing, as I checked on my underdone bacon again, that I was thinking about how much I want her to stay this way. Because the world needs women like her. Women who encourage and support each other. Women who are fans of each other, just because we know that this mama and wife thing is hard sometimes.
I hope she doesn’t grow up and get caught in the everybody-loses game of comparing herself to other women. I pray that she will be able to see that her gifts are God-ordained and Holy Spirit-directed, and that it honestly doesn’t matter one little bit what she looks like or what kind of house she lives in or whether she can cook eggs and pancakes.
When we sat down to eat, Adelade gobbled it down like it was the greatest thing she’d ever been served. Her eggs were over done. Her pancakes were cold. And her bacon wasn’t crispy. But, she assured me that it was all delicious.
I don’t know if she will ever learn to cook. She certainly won’t get very far watching me. But, whether her culinary skills ever take off or not, one thing I know: God has given her special gifts. And, one of them was showing at our dinner table tonight.
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