The Grains

Unbleached white flour, rice, oatmeal, barley, and pasta are the grains I focused on for the past month in preparing for a craft and bake sale.  I baked several kinds of bread and cookies which I sold.  Most of my preparation time with the grains was spent filling glass jars with them and other ingredients for delicious soup and cookie mixes.  It gave me a lot of time to think.  I mean after you've made several of the same thing, you just start doing it without thinking and then thinking can be about anything.

We begin with some raw ingredients...

Then we move to the preparation phase...

  

And finally the final product.

I was reminded in this project of how our lives contain a lot of raw ingredients - our life experiences.  And sometimes the process of making something with all of that can get a bit messy.  When we follow a Master Chef, the messiness becomes a culinary treasure or the new haute cuisine.  When we follow the bread of life as Jesus refers to Himself in the book of John, the messiness of life fades away and real living comes into focus.  Our Lord creates the treasure we were designed to be in Him.  I, for one, find great comfort in that.