Don't tell Mrs Smith!

Is there some magical recipe that leads to overall wellness and does each person have their own tailor-made cookbook designed by God?

Maybe my recipe for wellness includes a liberal dash of suffering (disability?), seasoned with some angst and alone time. Maybe it includes a marinade of weakness, loneliness, anger, and forgiveness to tenderize me. Is God like a Master Chef, knowing the ingredients, proportions and timing necessary to create a masterpiece out of my life?

The ingredients He has put together haven't seemed very appealing. My favorite entree of all time is Chicken Tarragon. My life recently has seemed like I was being offered raw eggs, a stick of butter, raw chicken, bitter tarragon, and stale bread. Ummm...Thank you, very much, but I'm not really hungry. Taken and eaten separately, they are all nauseating.

If I wrote the recipe for my life, what vital ingredients would I leave out?(Is anything needed other than chocolate, after all!) What proportions would I get wrong? (My preparation would be sickeningly sweet.) Would my technique ruin the dish? (I'd bake it at a nice gentle 200 degrees and eat it semi-raw, not wanting to turn up the heat.)

I sometimes think God is a little nuts. Like some kind of crazed chef tossing flour into the air and dumping ingredients helter skelter into a bowl while cackling maniacally. Me: "It doesn't make sense! Stop beating me with a mallet! That's too bitter! How about folding that in gently instead of whipping it! Geez! Slow down! Speed up! You are SO NOT adding Brussels sprouts!!! I am supposed to be a Chocolate Tort!"

And, I am reminded of Scripture: What right does the dish have to say to the Chef what form it will take?

If my life were a kitchen, it would look like a horror-scene on Mother's Day morning
after the kids attempt to cook mom breakfast. And, yet, in the midst of spilled, broken, dirty chaos, the smell coming from the oven is divine. "What's that? You don't say, God! A new concoction? One of a kind? You might enter it in a bake-off? Get OUT! You are naming it " Weird Lynna Wellness Pie"? I have to hand it to you Chef God, that combination of chicken, tarragon, Brussels sprouts and chocolate sounds nauseating, and definitely NOT what I'd choose, but, judging by the smell wafting from the oven, you might just know your way around the kitchen. Now, who is going to clean up this MESS?!"