Mother’s Day Disaster

 

 

     It was a bright, sunny  morning in mid May. Kelley jumped out of bed in excitement. Today was Mother’s Day, and she had big plans! Aha! She was very pleased to find, as she had hoped, that no one else in the family was up yet. “I must get to work right away, before they get up,” thought Kelley, entering the kitchen and reaching for her very own cookbook.

 

     By now, you have probably guessed what Kelley was planning that morning. Her “big plan” was to make breakfast for her Mom. Now, she really did not know how to cook, but she was full of enthusiasm, and was sure she could handle it very well.

 

     After looking through the cookbook for several minutes, Kelley paused at a recipe for banana cake. “That will be good,” she thought, “and I think it is easy enough for me.” Kelley was imagining how happy Mom would be to wake up and find breakfast all ready, when she realized she had one slight problem—there were no bananas in the house. Most people would consider that a big problem, but not Kelley. It was true that she did not have any bananas, but then again, there were plenty of strawberries to take their place. “Yes,” she decided, “strawberries will do just fine.” She began rounding up all the other ingredients she would need.

 

     Things seemed to be going pretty well, or so Kelley thought, as she stirred together the first few ingredients in her so-called banana cake. However, she soon ran into a nasty difficulty. Kelley had not checked before she began, to see how much honey she had, and now, though she searched high and low, she could not find enough honey for her cake. After scanning the cupboards for quite a while, she mulled over her dilemma. Since she had already begun to mix some of the items together, she had to continue, but not having honey was a little disturbing. There was no use panicking, though—she would just have to use molasses instead. “This isn’t turning out quite like it was supposed to,” she mused, as she poured the runny black liquid into the bowl, “but it will have to do, and I am sure it will be good anyway.”

 

     Trying to be creative, (and perhaps atone for her substitution) Kelley decided to put some almonds in, and so she dumped a sizable portion of whole almonds into the mixture, never thinking to chop them up! She was soon finished with the concoction, and put it in a pan and baked it.

 

     When Mom came out of her bedroom, she was as surprised as Kelley thought she would be—but sounded a little uncertain as she looked at the dark “cake” and asked what it was. “Oh, it is banana cake,” Kelley explained, “except, we did not have any bananas, so I used strawberries instead.”

 

     I am sure Kelley’s Mom had some doubts about eating it, but what could she do? “Thank you.” She tried to sound cheerful as she choked down the awful tasting “banana cake.” Yes, even Kelley noticed that something was wrong. It did not taste very good, and the whole almonds were hard to chew. “What went wrong?” Kelley wondered. She concluded that maybe strawberries and molasses did not work well together after all.

 

     Kelley’s “big plan” for Mother’s Day turned out to be a flop. Worse yet, after her unpleasant breakfast was eaten, Kelley ran outside to play—leaving her Mom with a stomachache and a stack of dirty dishes to wash. Was that very thoughtful of her?

 

     Kelley had learned several important lessons that day. Can you think of any? First of all, we should all be more thoughtful about how we help our parents. Our big plans and good intentions are not worth nearly as much as a cheerful heart while doing the little things that we know how to do.

 

     There is an even deeper lesson hidden in this story. Just as Kelley decided that strawberries would work in place of bananas, and molasses in place of honey, so we sometimes think that we can substitute our own ways for God’s ways. The Bible gives us very specific instructions on how we should live, and yet so often, we find ourselves thinking, “Oh, this is just a small thing. It does not really matter to God.” But if God says in His Word that it matters, then it does matter. We must follow His directions. If we do not, we will not be real Christians any more than Kelley’s little experiment was a real banana cake! Let us all try to learn from God’s direction Book every day, and live by it.

Kiowa Francis