One Pan Chocolate Cake

Happy Valentines Day!
Hope somebody showed you how much they love you ...appreciate all you do.
I've been waiting a few days now for some quiet time to write ...it hasn't come.  Late nights, early mornings, a houseful of kids spanning many years ...different needs at different times. Translation = nonstop.  I think part of it is cabin fever.
There really hasn't been a moment to stop and consider what's going on inside of me.  Maybe that's not so important right now.  What I have been doing, with varying degrees of success, is trying to not complain, to serve joyfully, and recognize all I do as caring for God's creations He has entrusted me with.  I'm finding that hard because I want recognition, a pat on the back ...a simple "thank you."  Often, it's hard not to take things personally ...I really struggle with that.  So pray for me, would you?  Where I want to be is a place where simply being able to serve is enough ...the simple gift of the opportunity to serve others would leave me filled with love, warmth ...an awareness of His generosity.  I want to be in a place where the thought of being appreciated, recognized is remote, so very far away.  If I can get to that place then I think my life will be a humble one, truly serving God ...and that's really all I want to do.
But I get in the way ...too many times.
So Valentine's Day is here.  I've always done something little, but special for the kids.  Little goody bags, maybe a small gift, cards ...all different things ...but something.  This year is no different except there is no gift for Phoebe ...just six, not seven little bags of treats.  Tugs a bit at my heart, but not too terrible today.  Thinking back on years past I remember things that soften my heart still ...little unexpected treasures offered.  I remember my mother giving us new pajamas on Valentine's Day.  Maybe not every year, but at times ...and what a nice gift about now ...growing tired of what you've worn for months, a new nightie brightens things.  Later, I remember the first time my doorbell rang.  Flowers delivered to me ....hmmm, I thought ...not my husbands style.  I found myself completely caught off guard to read the card that signed off "Love, Dad."  For a few years, flowers would be delivered on this day from my father ...not like him at all, either.  Sometimes those things mean more when they are given by someone you never thought would. We're always changing, growing ...becoming.  But it is good to look back and remember, maybe even repeat some of the things that made us feel special, loved in a previous time.
One of my girls wanted to make a cake for today.  "What kind?" she asked.  Without thinking I respond "how bout the one pan chocolate cake?"  "Oh yeah, that's a good one."  The one pan chocolate cake ...a staple of my mothers.  I couldn't count the number of times she would bake that cake for us.  Funny how a cake can bridge the distance between yesterday and today ...between the living and the dead.  Lucy measures and pours ...walks away, so I stir.  There I am with two others ..."don't use the mixer", my mother says "its meant to be hand stirred."  Phoebe's over my shoulder "oh your making the one pan ...good."  The three of us together ...its as if they are there.  No sadness runs through me ...just a sense, an assurance they are close by, approving ...moving about my kitchen.  My mother looks at me, knows how tired I am ...emotionally, physically ...exhausted, wondering how this pace won't drag me down.  She thought the same thing ...struggles of her own in a house filled with teenagers ...straddling the ages, serving, loving ...serving, striving ...serving.  Phoebe pats my back, leans over me, assures me this is a good one to make ...let's them see I think of them.  "They don't see it now mawma ...but later they will." A peck on the cheek and she is gone.  I am here alone ...busyness all around me, the pace unrelenting. I am grateful for the recipe of the one pan cake ...in such a small way, my mother paved the way for me this evening ...and maybe I am too for one of my girls many years down the road.
I'm struck by how our service to our children lives long after the moment ... Isn't that the timelessness of God?  Isn't that His generosity in how He uses us?  For now that is enough ...to just rest in the timelessness of God ...and how he makes us a part of that.  The timelessness that brings the past and the present, the living and the dead ...all to the same place in the same moment ...for just a fleeting moment.

Tonight I will pray the following mystery for all of your intentions.

Scourging at the Pillar: Matthew 27:25-26
And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children. Then he released to them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him unto them to be crucified

Christ substituted Himself voluntarily for us as a sacrificial victim without blemish in order to pay our debt, and, by the expiation and the satisfaction which He made for us, to restore the Divine life to us. This was the mission which Christ came to fulfill, the course which He had to run. "God has placed upon Him"--a man like unto ourselves, of the race of Adam, but entirely just and innocent and without sin--"the iniquity of us all."

Since Christ has become, so to speak, a sharer in our nature and taken upon Himself the debt of our sin, He has merited for us a share in His justice and holiness. In the forceful words of St. Paul, God, "by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin-offering, has condemned sin in the flesh." And with an impact still more stunning, the Apostle writes: "For our sakes He (God) made Him (Christ) to be sin who knew nothing of sin." How startling this expression is: "made Him to be sin"! The Apostle does not say "sinner," but--what is still more striking--"sin"!

Let us never forget that "we have been redeemed at great price by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 


Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace. Amen.