Making Cannolis

My children have apparently inherited my husbands affinity for trying new foods, because my son asked me to make cannolis for his birthday.  None of us has ever had them before...so I didn't even know what to look for in a recipe. I just found one with a lot of reviews that were mostly good and went for it.

I don't cook with wine a lot because we're not big drinkers and I don't keep wine around the house.  But all the recipes I found called for dry white wine. I didn't even know what a dry white wine is. Google is my friend. I was actually pretty skeptical about the need for wine in the shell. The dough didn't smell particularly good and I even considered skipping the wine and using a more desirable ingredient. But I ended up sticking to the recipe in the end.

Get this though, the girl at the checkout counter didn't card me. I mean, she didn't even bat an eye, she just rang me up. My life flashed before my eyes. Really?! I'm old enough to not be carded? I totally felt like those women in sitcoms who flip out and demand to show their ID anyway. I didn't. But I felt like it.

So anyway, I dug into the cannoli making process.

So technically you're supposed to use forms during the frying process to create the cannoli shape but I didn't want to buy them until I knew whether or not cannolis would be a repeat item in our food repretoire. So I "made do". Just in case you ever wondered, the handles of whisks are not cannoli forms, although they look like they are and perform decently (except when water got lodged inside the handle and I didn't realize it and created some fireworks when I put it in the hot oil!) in the absence of real cannoli forms.

The actual process of forming and frying the cannolis was an awkward and not very successful endeavor at first. But with every cannoli I was able to identify a problem and solve it with the next one and within a few rounds, I was able to make perfectly formed and perfectly crisp cannolis shells.

It kind of struck me how similar life is to my cannoli experience.  We don't come into this life with the ability to make perfect decisions every time. We try, we mess up and we try again with a better idea of how to get it right. If I had decided that making cannolis was too hard after the first one, or if I had not actively learned from every mistake and worked to correct it, our cannoli experience would have been a lot less pleasant.

I get so tired of making mistakes and not getting things right. It's not always about a lack of knowledge, sometimes it's just a lack of implementing that knowledge. I've heard people say things like "if you want to know how to eat healthy or exercise effectively, ask an overweight person" and sadly, that is very much the case in a lot of circumstances...at least in my life.

The thing is though, sometimes I'm too dense to learn whatever it is that God is trying to teach me. So much of what I always assumed about God and my relationship with Him is either totally false or completely misunderstood.

I always thought that as I got older that I would FEEL wiser, but to be honest, while I can SEE growth in my life, I feel more ignorant and flawed than ever. And as silly as it sounds, I feel like God has totally broken down my old preconceptions about Him and is teaching me what's real. And so much of the time I read the "recipe" and decide that the ingredients or process called for isn't really necessary so I skip it or substitute and then completely miss out on the delicious result to be disappointed by my own creation. I'm trying so hard that I miss out on what God has for me. Instead of being still and seeing His glory, I try to create it on my own.

Doesn't work.

God's plan is beautiful and perfect. His thoughts and ways are infinitely above my own, so even when it doesn't make sense or doesn't feel like I think it should, I have to learn to be still. To trust Him and rely on His goodness instead of trying to help Him out.

Cannoli verdict? The shells were amazing. I'll definitely make them again (and I'm so glad I went with the wine!). The cream filling? Eh. We'll have to tweak that a bit.

Being the Prodigal Daughter

If you read my Love at First Sight? or Letting Go of Perfection: Work in Progress post or if you know me at all, you know that our dating life was marked by sin. And our marriage has been far from perfect.

At the time, I didn't even know how much that sin affected me.  In fact, it's taken me years to realize just how much it did.

It went on for months and the fact that I was able to do something that went against everything I had been taught and personally believed for that long a time...well, the Bible talks about what happens when you do that. But the thing is, it actually went on for longer than that. It was a gradual thing, little by little I violated my conscience more and more until ultimately, I didn't even care that I violated it in the ultimate sense.

We had a wedding. We had a honeymoon. We went through the motions. But now, it's really hard to even think back on any of that because it's so marked by sin. And those old feelings of guilt and shame are overwhelming if I dwell on it.

It's hard to pinpoint the moment that God began to redeem our lives. I'm not even sure there is a pinpoint. What I do know is that He did and He is. It's more of a process than a defining moment. I feel like the process (for me, Michael's story is his own to tell) really began about 5 years into our marriage when I started a series of "Give ups".  I realized that satan's life plan for me wasn't working and I was tired of trying to make it work. So I gave up. And a few years later...under different circumstances I "gave up" again. Not the same "give up"...a different, more defining one...and since then I've had another or two.

Like an artist sculpting a statue out of a large piece of rock...God has been chainsawing away at the large unwanted pieces of rock. And with each piece gone He's getting closer to the image in His head.

I know that at different points in all of this our families were wondering where this...our marriage...was going. I know they must have been afraid and frustrated and angry and embarrassed. And I'm sorry for that. I wish that others didn't have to suffer for our sin.

But I'm so glad that we didn't give up. I'm so glad that God didn't give up. I'm so glad that we stuck around long enough to enjoy the fruit of not giving up. To see the good in not giving up. Because while I would NEVER want to leave anyone with the impression that we are (or think we are) perfect or without flaws or struggles on a daily basis...we're not, we don't and we do...things are good. Even in the moments of struggle we can see God's grace in our lives. In honest and raw conversations that end in calmness and prayer instead of physical violence. In trust in God to see us through instead of blame and isolation. In compassion and forgiveness instead of condemnation and pride at the discovery of sin. In the reduction in the amount of time required to bounce back from a disagreement. He's here.

Those years were hard. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. But they've made me thankful. I feel like I have some sense of how the Prodigal Son must have felt when he came home. Humbled, surprised and overwhelmingly thankful for God's grace!

How GREAT is our God?!

Letting Go of Perfection: Work in Progress

Love is nothing like what I thought it was.  It's not Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak kissing in the rain.  It's not happily ever after.  It's not fireplaces and slippers and pipes and endless ecstasy.

It's work.

It's hard, gut wrenching work.

Being human is not what I thought it was either (which is probably the reason love isn't what I thought it was).

Before struggling with my own sin and witnessing Michael's struggle, I had never witnessed anyone truly struggle with sin.  Well, I say that, but it's not entirely true.  I did see people struggle with sin but I got the impression that they were somehow "less than"...I always got the impression that anyone who struggled with sin wanted to sin.  None of the "good" people that I knew struggled with sin, or at least I didn't know about it.  I was very judgmental.

In my mind, there was a list of behaviors that were sins and if I could avoid things like dancing or drinking alcohol or dressing immodestly...and make it to church every Sunday...that my life was basically free from sin and I would be "saved".

So when I became old enough to know I was a sinner, for a while I felt like I was okay because I checked off the items on the checklist...but eventually things started going wrong.

I couldn't really understand why I struggled so much on a daily basis...it seemed like everyone else had it all together but I struggle so badly...every day. I just kept thinking that if I could just "get it together" that things would be fine. And as I watched Michael struggle, I was just as judgmental of him as I was of everyone else...and myself.

I kept holding myself and my marriage up to the seemingly perfect models that I saw at church and on TV.

I held onto my images of perfection for a long time. I probably would have told you that I let go...but I hadn't.  It seems like God has been working really hard on me for the past couple of years. I spent the last  year or two literally going through the grieving process as I came to terms with reality.

Because I WANTED to be the perfect Christian girl that everyone looks up to and tries to be like. I WANTED to have a marriage that is admired and sought after my all. I wanted what I thought almost all of the christians I knew had.

But I finally let go. It's for real. I'm not perfect, and I'm never going to be. I struggle with gluttony and self discipline on a continual basis. Michael is not perfect and he's never going to be. My marriage is not perfect and it's never going to be.

But you know what? I'm growing. And even in it's brokenness, marriage is good! God has developed a level of compassion that I never knew was possible.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to leave the wrong impression...as i said before, I'm not perfect...do I still judge sometimes? Yes. But compassion is becoming more and more of a trend in my life. Instead of seeing the sin, I see the struggle. Because I KNOW what the struggle looks like. I know what it feels like. And my heart hurts for anyone in the midst of it.

God's grace truly is amazing! It continually cleanses us from all unrighteousness. And I need that, continually.

It's like I'm a big, ugly, hard, dirty and formless piece of rock. I know I'm hideous and need to change, but all I can manage is to roll around in the dirt on my own. But slowly God chisels this ugly piece of rock. And every once in a while I see what He's done and I am overwhelmed with His goodness and awesomeness. God is working and His grace covers me! And His grace is truly amazing and sufficient!