songs of deliverance and chocolate cake....

i have a friend. she makes an AMAZING cake. we named the cake after her and even though she has moved away from here, we all still call it after her. simply Caria's cake.

i have tried to make it over and over and to no avail i always mess it up. i try a different cake mix one time or keep using the silly fancy silicone bundt pan that never seems to cook the cake completely or hold the batter correctly...that silly pan. i got such a good deal on it over ten years ago and was so excited to try something new, something fancy. but it never delivered. such a dirty old, maybe fancy but not working vessel. i've ruined many a birthday cakes for others with it, meals to comfort others only to send crumbles, might have a new family over for dinner only to apologize about the cake that should be that isn't...


"Strive to trust Me in more and more areas of your life. Anything that tends to make you anxious is a growth opportunity. Instead of running away from the these challenges, embrace them, eager to gain the blessings I have hidden in the difficulties. If you believe that I am sovereign over every aspect of your life, it is possible to trust Me in all situations. Don't waste energy regretting at the present moment- accept things exactly as they are- and search for My way in the midst of those circumstances. Trust is like a staff you can lean on, as you journey uphill with Me. If you are trusting in Me consistently, the staff will bear as much of your weight as needed. Lean on, trust and be confident in Me with you all your heart and mind. "
Jesus Calling (Psalm 52"8, Proverbs 3: 5-6)

cakes are yummy and good. and serve as pretty silly analogies. but for me, it hit me yesterday. as i finally threw out the old cake pan and got a new one, a cheap metal one, but a simple pretty pan for ten dollars. i made it one more time and the cake turned out for me for the first time ever! sometimes we are afraid to get rid of old comforts, old sin patterns, or try and choose what we know is radical, but is for our own good and that is to press on and trust wildly and blindly in a plan that's not our own. again, stretching the analogy here but it's how my brain reconciles hard truths. with simple word pictures. and sometimes cake.





worry and fear and anxiety are idols we hold on to that make us think we can control things. they give us "something to do" while we wait on the Lord....they keep us busy and give us an appearance that we have it all under control. which is silly, because we don't. these things we wrestle with, these worry and fear storms, they are in fact idols and they are precious red flags that fly high in the way of alerting us to mistrust.

for many, while we wait on a plan or a prayer or a tough season, we can get distracted or even frozen or paralyzed in fear, inaction. and our defense is that we are worried, we are fearful....but really we are just not trusting that God is good or has our back. some will figure this out and pray, pray without ceasing and be at peace, quietly trusting. others will continue to struggle in trust and keep holding clinched fists and heart and not allow Hope to be a balm to their heart, they will choose fear instead and it will rot their bones like cancer.........and then there are others, as our pastor mentioned on sunday, who will just keep singing. singing songs of deliverance. waiting and waiting and waiting on the Lord, trusting but still waiting, maybe a bit anxious in their waiting but their hearts soon turn to a revival, a swell of Hope and Good news, an uplifting thought or truth, verse or song...that makes their heart sing again. God may push back the waters many times for protection for some while for others He serves as simply a refuge for those worrisome times and we can run to Him and hide in Him. and then for some others, they sing.

i love that idea.....i trust, but i also struggle big time with waiting on God. but i do believe, that without really realizing it, i have been singing songs of deliverance the past four years...oh i've been the clinched fist girl for sure, in the beginning. shell shocked and broken heart and FULL of fear, hiding..but in the last good while of a couple years or so, especially this last one, i've been singing of a God that is good even when good things aren't happening, singing about a place, a Home, that waits for me, pure and Holy where i am not a stranger like i am here. singing of a sweet loving man that died on a tree to save me and took my dark wretched iniquity and threw it deep deep into the deepest depths of the oceans, forever gone. while i wait, i sing.


the Gospel is painful turned grace that's free, not earned. it's comforting mercy that's unmerited or deserved but forever yours. it is Hope and a future and REconciliation and REdemption and REstoration. the Gospel takes the broken and the crumbled pieces of our heart and says "THIS i can work with and will make new" and bless others in the process....the Gospel says we are not to trust in our own righteousness but to fully rest on His. the Gospel says come as you are BUT i WILL transform you and change you and make you new and give you a new spirit and life....the Gospel is radical and makes sorrow and mourning into dancing and joy, pain into purpose and death into life...ALL to the Glory of GOD. not us.

i do believe that if we continue to walk this earth, thinking that this haphazard and half-hearted and "worry=control" way of living life works for us, that we'll keep trying to make "the perfect cake" and it will keep flopping, we will keep saying, "oh it will work out one day or another..." or just live with "the crumbled pieces" and "take what we can", and we will cheapen and water down the beauty that is the Gospel.