The Magic Casserole

The Magic Casserole

When my husband and I married, nearly forty-five years ago, I had never cooked a meal.  My mom was a phenomenal cook, and priorities for our lives didn’t involve cooking lessons for me.  Our priorities were set from an early age:  God and church, first; family, second; schoolwork, third; everything else, fourth.  Dad was a pastor with church activities on many evenings of the work.  Mom was a homemaker, beginning dinner early in the afternoon before we got home from school.  We ate soon after everyone got home, helped clean up afterward, and, then, either went to church or began our homework.

I was a bit of a geek, loving school and, sometimes, working late into the night to complete projects or to memorize chapters of material.  As a result, when I graduated, I knew Latin, physics, and many memorized Bible verses, but not too much about cooking.

Rick and I moved to Houston from Dallas about six months after we married.  That promptly ended Sunday dinners with Dad and Mom.  That was a problem because my husband had fallen in love with my mom’s cooking.  As a result, every Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, that meant my mom would be getting a phone call from me asking her to walk me through the steps of the weekend’s meals.  My mom seldom used a recipe, but she was soon forced, for her own sanity, to begin writing down favorites and mailing them to me.  That, at least, cut down a little on the long distance charges, which were considerable in those days.  Thus began my days of collecting cookbooks and recipes, a trait I still indulge to this day.

Shortly after moving to Houston, we had been guests at someone’s home, and they had served a delicious spaghetti, tomato, ground beef, and cheese dish.  I asked for the recipe, unaware, at that time, that some women don’t exactly cook the very same recipe which they give out.  This particular recipe failed to note the necessity of cooking the spaghetti prior to mixing it with the other ingredients and baking it.  I also made another cardinal error; I prepared it for the first time when guests were coming.  By this time, I was acquiring a reputation for being a good cook; unfortunately, I can, personally, testify to the truth of Proverbs 16:18 – Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.

As I prepared the dish that afternoon, my husband asked, “Aren’t you supposed to cook the noodles, first?”  I assured him that it wasn’t in the recipe, reasoning that the noodles would cook from the other juices in the dish.  Laughingly, I told him it was a magic casserole.  Unconvinced, he just shrugged his shoulders, as I prepared the rest of the meal.  Imagine my humiliation when serving the first plate.  I put in the spoon, only to have stiff spaghetti stick through the top of the casserole, completely uncooked.  My husband began to chuckle as he said, “Yep, that’s a magic casserole, alright!”  Everyone around the table, except me, of course, began to laugh.  We had to pick through the casserole, avoiding the raw spaghetti, and I am sure that everyone left the house hungry.  Even today, we – yes, I can laugh about it, now – still joke about the magic casserole.

My cooking endeavors could have ended there; wisely, my husband knew when to let it go.  He never gave up on me.  Though I resigned from cooking forever that night, he wouldn’t let me indulge my desire to give up.  He wanted something for supper the next night, and the next.  He complimented my continued efforts and my eventual improvement.  One day, I asked him how he tolerated all of those long days of learning, with the cake I accidentally broiled, instead of baking, or the homemade ice cream that I didn’t seal the ice cream salt out of, or the magic casserole.

His response:  I choose not to remember the bad meals; I focus on the good ones.

As I thought about his application of grace towards me, I couldn’t help but think of my Heavenly Father and the grace that He extends toward me everytime I must disappoint Him.  How could He tolerate all of the “magic casseroles” I have served Him in my Christian walk?  The times that I have thought I knew better than He, ignored the Holy Spirit’s sweet, gentle leading, or just refused to follow God’s Word, His recipe for life.

Suddenly, I heard the beauty of Psalm 18:19 – He delivered me, because He delighted in me.  I am so grateful that verse does NOT say that He delivered me because I am delightful.  The “magic casseroles” of my life have been distasteful, unpleasant, and, sometimes, humiliating; however, He delivered me because He delighted in me – not my magic casseroles.

When God looks at me, He doesn’t see my past failures; He sees only my promised future.  Isn’t that the way we have to love our children, our mate, our friends, our family?  If we dwell only on the failures of the past, there is no hope for the future.  For those who have a relationship with God the Father through Christ the Son, however, there is the promise of both and a hope and a future, Jeremiah 29:11.  Thank God we can confess the failures of the past, 1 John 1:9, and press on to the promise of a future!

© 2011 Gerry Sisk

(06/15/11)