You Are What You Eat

"Mimi, what is your favorite cake?" my 14-year-old granddaughter, Corrin, asked, taking out bowls and utensils from the cupboard after supper one night last week.

"Um, I don't know!" I answered.  "Why? Are you going to make me a cake?"  She smiled and nodded.  Tomorrow would be my birthday, but since we were leaving in the morning and we had already celebrated by going out to eat that day,  I wasn't expecting a cake.  "I guess chocolate, maybe, or lemon?" I suggested.

Checking out the supplies in the pantry for ingredients, she asked, "How about pound cake?"  I told her that sounded good, and when I passed through the kitchen later, I saw her intently peering into a cookbook with flour, eggs and milk set out on the counter.  This was to be homemade!  I'd heard she was getting to be a great cook!  On the next pass through, she was slicing strawberries on a cutting board.

Finally she called, "Mimi, it's ready!"  I went in to see a  beautiful, glazed bundt cake with strawberries filling the center and spilling down the sides.  I was so proud of her! She even found a representative candle which she lit as they sang Happy Birthday.  It  may have been ten o'clock at night by then, but it was a sweet ending to an evening of fun after a long game of Scrabble with her mom, sister and niece. 

Something my daughter, Julie, said the other evening reminded me of this.  We had been talking about God's goodness and blessings, and she told of a time when she was sitting in church listening to one of her husband's sermons.  As she focused on what he was saying, she suddenly saw an outline of Jesus surrounding him.  "I could still see Steve's face," she said, "but he seemed to be overlaid with a transparent image of Jesus!  Just then he stopped and said, 'I feel Jesus all over me!'"  She said she thought, Oh, if you only knew!

Jesus was in my sweet Corrin as she thoughtfully labored to make my birthday cake.  This week she is off at church camp, no doubt soaking in His presence, taking in and learning of Him, strengthening her faith. Just as the bundt cake pan impressed and molded its image into the lovely fluted design of the cake, she is  being impressed with his image.  As the strawberries soaked the cake with its sweet flavor, so we absorb and give of the flavor of Christ when we have  been with Him.