"I am not a good cook!"

From March 1, 2010, taken from my other blog

I am not a good cook. If you had asked me when I was young -- like up to age 40 and younger -- I would have answered that I was a fairly good cook! I was gutsy in the kitchen, and nothing stymied me.

What happened? Perhaps it was the maturing of my taste buds. I don’t know, though – they don’t seem that mature.

But I used to cook interesting meals and meals that required a lot of (what I would now call) kitchen wizardry. Today, I hesitate at cooking anything someone other than my husband and I eat.

I really think it was the years of cooking on an electric range.
A pox upon electric cooking!
But when we bought this house, I insisted that I was going to have a gas stove, and I got it.

Immediately, my cooking improved!
Then the old doubts crept back in, and I noticed I was back to telling people, “I am a terrible cook. I’ll buy something and bring it.”

Lately, however, I am starting to think, once again, that maybe I can cook. I nearly made hamentashen for our celebration the gathering the other night, but I didn’t, and only brought M&Ms and a bowl of mixed nuts. Now, I regret that. It may not be Purim anymore, but I think I will make some hamentashen anyway. My way.

One of the reasons I haven't considered myself a good cook is because I never stick to the recipe. Ever. I look at it and tweak it some way – often in many ways. Now, it is not like me to admit this, but 95% of the time, what I cook turns out wonderfully! But I am going to admit here and now that it is that 5% of the time that mobilizes what I say about my cooking. There. I wrote it. I base my concept of my being a bad cook on the failures, which truly only happen about 5% of the time, if that often! That 5% propels me, causes my cookery self-criticism, triggers my feelings of ineptness in the kitchen.

Similarly, this is often how we measure ourselves when it comes to our walks with the L-rd. Now, I am writing about people who have been walking with Him for a few years and who have taken that walk seriously -- not about the game-players and those who hang on the edges – people who are truly serious about “walking the walk” and not just “talking the talk.” We so easily get our eyes off Him and onto ourselves and our imperfections.

That is not how He thinks. He says that His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses [2 Corinthians 12: 7-9] – in those times when we know we are not strong, so we lean hard upon Him. The trick, however, is recognizing our weaknesses, not ignoring them, and yet not letting them pull us into the doldrums, but handing the control over to Him, so that we let Him, not us, shine!

When we were talking at the restaurant the other day, when my son’s family, my husband, and I went out to eat, I mentioned one of the aspects of the transition from the old church to where I attend now. In the old church, I sang a lot of solos and occasionally in some groups. I sang in the home-town church, other churches, and at conventions. Further, there, we were measured by how we would not say no to any request to do some ministry for the church, no matter how much those duties took us away from our families and responsibilities.

When the subject of leaving that church ever came up, one of the hooks they would use to keep us there was, “You’ll never be ‘used’ in another church, as you are here.” They knew that this would play to the egos of those who were needy for such, and it worked.

When I left there, since I had been occasionally attending my new place of worship for several years, I knew that there was no such thing as soloists et al. And being a member there, it was a growing time for me to learn that I did not have to be “special.”

However, when my children left that church, they found, in their chosen places of worship, that they were absolutely begging for people to “step into the gap.” They soon had to learn how to say “no” in their churches, because there was a tendency to loose themselves in the ministries and to miss out on the important parts of being believers. They had to learn to take hold of the correct “percent” -- to be mobilized by the right percent.

In my new place of worship, no one seemed to be measuring me as in the old church, so I got to learn to measure myself by the reality of what really was – whether I needed to be “special” or could be a simple background support, whether or not I was growing, etc. -- to stand on my own two feet rather than leaning upon the supposition and suspicions of others.

Could I learn to operate with the correct percentage there? I have learned and am learning. I have been a member there since late December, 1999. Ten years. And it has been good. It has been a great part of my sanctification -- my separation -- unto G-d.