Well Prepared?

Well Prepared?

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

Romans 12:6

The night before our wedding, I lay in bed thinking about the changes in my life soon to take place. In less than twenty-four hours I would have a new name, a new address, and a new role. I would be a wife, a homemaker, and someday, I hoped, a mother. I was prepared, or so I thought.

After two full months of bridal showers and teas, I could have opened my own department store. Our prenuptial festivities made the inauguration look spur of the moment.

At linen showers I received sheets to fit any size bed, towels to wrap around any shape body, and enough blankets to warm the entire population of Iceland.

But it was kitchen showers that really pushed my domestic button. I was ready to set up house. If I wasn’t given every kitchen gadget ever invented, Martha Stewart can’t cook. And dishes—I had enough dishes to host a buffet dinner for the state of Tennessee. No matter if I had forty-two place settings, I kept them all.

Although I started married life with top-of-the-line paraphernalia, it never dawned on me that I did not have the first hint about homemaking. Maybe it was when I dumped an entire cart of groceries in the parking lot beside my car. (No one told me I was supposed to wait for the next available sacker to take them out.) Or maybe it was the multicolored specks in a dip I whipped up. (The hand-painted cutting board should have included instructions to chop on the back side.) But I think it was when I used a rectal thermometer to see if my roast was done that Bill knew homemaking was probably not my strong suit.

—Kathy Peel

O Father, thank you for the many gifts you give me every day. Help me to identify my special gifts and to use them wisely and humbly. And help me not to be frustrated by the gifts I don’t have. Amen.