Beauty is Lemon Pudding

I got another beauty devotional today, so I thought I'd share. I plan on doing another post tonight about BOW, so hopefully that'll get done and not put off another week! ; )




As a new bride cooking for Paul’s and my one-month anniversary, I wanted everything to be perfect. For dessert, I’d made a lemon cake from scratch, carefully following the cookbook’s directions. Fifteen minutes later, I eagerly peeked in the oven to see how it was doing and groaned. I’d forgotten to turn the oven on! So I made a snap decision to cook it at 450 degrees for the remaining half hour, instead of the 350 stated in the cookbook. Disaster struck again as the edges became hard and the middle, soggy. I mushed it up in the pan and set it on the counter so it could cool before I dumped it in the trash.


Five minutes later, I heard Paul in the kitchen. “What are you doing in there?” From his voice, I could tell he was smiling. “Caught me! I was just sampling that great lemon pudding you made.” “Pudding! That was supposed to be a cake—and it’s ruined!” “It may be ruined as a cake, but it’s perfect as a pudding.” And it was.

And it got me thinking. That dress I was planning to sew but cut the pattern wrong—well, rather than scrap the whole thing, why not use the fabric to make a skirt? And more important, that friendship I’d been wondering if I should end because Nina and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on certain issues—well, why not enjoy the things we did before and forget about the rest?

Dear God, don’t let me throw away a perfectly good pudding because it’s not a cake! Help me find the beauty and value in imperfect situations.

—linda neuKruG