As I sit here before sunrise this Thanksgiving morning, peeling, chopping potatoes, adding them to the slow cooker with chicken broth and butter to cook, I think of the parallels to my life these potatoes bring.
A potato, by itself, just dug up from the ground, dirty, flawed with brown spots, isn’t really ready to eat, is it?
However, to become the beautiful, finished product I desire, I bring it in, scrub it, peel it, chop it, slowly cook it with broth and butter and flavorings. When the potato is soft and pliant, I mash it up. I add butter, heavy cream, salt, pepper, maybe some garlic and cream cheese, depending on who will eat it. Mix it all together lovingly to make a beautiful, delicious mash.
Isn’t this kind of what God does with our lives?
He brings us into his fold, all dirty and marred with hurts. He then lovingly washes us up with Jesus. He sets us back down, with a recipe to follow his Word. As we live our lives on earth, God then peels back the unsightly layers to reveal the new, wiser us. As the world cooks us, God then molds us and adds ingredients to make us better, wiser, stronger, and with more faith. At the right time, he mashes us up to tender our hearts, making us pliable and ready to fulfill the calling and purpose he created us for.
Like the delicious russet potato, the second star of our Thanksgiving Table, when we are all washed, molded, flavored, mashed, and in our wise, Godly finery, we are finally ready for God to use us as he desires. We let go of our own desires as they become mashed and molded into his desires. His desires are now our desires, for we have endured the mashing and molding to embrace our purpose, as we sit perfected on the Thanksgiving Table of Life.
This Thanksgiving may we all be thankful for a God who loves us enough to do the peeling, chopping, cooking, mashing, and flavoring before dawn, to create in us a beautiful Thanksgiving masterpiece, ready to love, give, help, teach, grow, whatever he asks us to, ultimately making us the happiest and most beautiful we can be.
Happy and joyous Thanksgiving Day and Season to you all.
May your hearts truly be filled with the joy of Thanksgiving. May God bless and keep you, each one.
And if this is a time of peeling or mashing for you, may God hold you close and carry you gently, but securely until it’s done.
Peace and love,
Mindy 🩷
"I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Philippians 1:6
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