Lumps In The Gravy…

Lumps In The Gravy…

I have been blessed with three mothers. One gave birth to me, one gave me a new life and a home, and one gave me unconditional love. You see, when I was put into foster care, my “mom” had five grown children. Yet, she and Dad felt lead to care for the abandoned, mistreated, and abused children who needed a home and love. She gave me the first real foundation of a Christian mom. She adopted me 24 years ago before she passed away. Proverbs 1:8-9. "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck."

Her middle daughter showed me the unconditional love and became my mom in so many ways. She passed away last year. As I was making my grandson's gravy this morning, I remembered a conversation she and I shared. It took place before Thanksgiving, and I was making gravy. Now remember, my biogical mother did not teach me to cook. I learned on my own from pure necessity. My sister said to me, "A good cook knows how to keep the lumps out of the gravy." (Or something really close to that, it has been so many long years ago).

I looked at the gravy and it struck me, that our life is like the gravy. We put into the gravy the ingredients that are necessary to create the desired outcome, but lumps will form. If we are Christians, that is our walk with God, our family, our faith. But the lumps form anyway, just like my gravy. We whisk and whisk, but some won't go away. The hard times, the addictions, the struggle, the doubts, and the fears. All these blend in and are smoothed eventually, but if left alone, the lumps reform. We can't seem to get rid of the lumps without insistent, intentional care. That is God. He is the whisk. He is the thing that consistently moves within our lives, like in the gravy, to take away the lumps. Life, just like gravy, will have those lumps, but I know what to use to make my lumps smaller, and allow some to disappear.

It seems that I will always struggle with some lumps, we all will. At times they will break apart to reveal the glorious smooth texture that we desire, only to reform when the heat is turned up or our life is left unattended. Grab your whisk and tend to your lumps as I am mine. Happy Mother's Day my friends.

Isaiah 45:2, "I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars"