The Case of the Missing Brownies

Last night while I organized my baking drawer using my cool new Ikea dividers, Ania made gluten-free brownies complete with semi-sweet chocolate chips.  YUM! I haven’t been eating sugar this month, so I was excited about taking a break from my sugar fast.  I ate a fresh hot gooey one.  Later in the evening, another brownie called to me.  I slapped brownie two on plate and added a spoonful of peanut butter.  The first two rows of brownie were almost gone.  Three-fourths left.  I went to bed.

The next morning
Groggy and in need of coffee, I headed down to the kitchen.  The brownie pan sat out on the counter-Glaringly EMPTY!  How can this be?  Who would steal three-fourths of a pan of gluten-free brownies? Certainly not the gluten eating, non Celiacs of the family.  Surely, they would save my precious brownies for ME!

A friend told me I should wrap my gluten-free goodies in foil and label them broccoli before putting them in the freezer.  Oh, but hope springs eternal, or stupidity reigns forever?

Don’t worry, I’m  not having a brownie breakdown.  I’m not upset at all.  It just got me thinking.  Why would I leave something valuable out for others to take freely?  No, I’m not talking about brownies anymore.  I’m talking about my peace, my joy, my Bible reading time, my writing time.  As a Mom, I sometimes feel as if my time is a commodity that is not mine.  I too freely and frequently let all of it be used up without counting the cost.  How often I hear other Mothers say, “I don’t have time for Bible reading.  I don’t have time for myself.  I just lose my patience.  There is just not enough time in the day for ______.”

God has been challenging lately to stop giving my brownies away, so to speak- without the right intent of my heart.  If I am doing something that I resent doing, what kind of offering is that to the Lord?  If I say ‘yes’ to something with my mouth and my spirit is whispering ‘no’ then I feel as if my brownies are being stolen.  I lose my peace and my joy.  The truth is God has given each of us a calling, something that is unique for us to do and if we do whatever anyone in the body of Christ expects us to do, we deny our mission.

“Only, let each one [seek to conduct himself and regulate his affairs so as to] lead the life which the Lord has allotted and imparted to him and to which God has invited and summoned him.  This is my order in all the churches.”  I Corinthians 7: 17

Lead the life which the Lord has allotted to me.  If my life is a pan of brownies, how am I spending it? I don’t want to wake up one day at the end of my life, my strength waning and realize all of my brownies are gone and I didn’t complete the mission that God has given me because I was too pressured by those who thought I should be doing something else.

How about you?  Do you feel you don’t have time for the important things because you spend your time on temporal things?  Do you have a desire to write, organize, sew, organize a food-pantry, start a women’s Bible study, homeschool your kids (or grandkids), invite neighbors over, etc…?  Are those things that God has put on your heart on the back burner because you feel pressured to do what everyone else is doing? Have you lost your peace and joy because of it?  Are you suffering from the case of the missing brownies?