Banana Cream Pie

Today’s miracles: childlike joy and a unique variation of banana cream pie.

Today’s mishaps: my car in a ditch, flip-flops run over by a rototiller, and a reminder that my goat cheese tasted like lemony yuck.

So again I reached my hands to the sunblind sky and shouted, “God, you made me! Thank you! Amen!”

My eyes were primed to find excitement amidst the mundane in my morning reflection from Jesus Calling:

“I long to make your life a glorious adventure, but you must stop clinging to old ways. I am always doing something new within My beloved ones. Be on the lookout for all that I have prepared for you.”

After the farmer removed my car from the ditch, and we laughed about my quadruple-y doused lemon juice goat cheese, and I hoed my flip-flops out of the ground on which I was “earthing” – walking barefooted to weed the garden, a miracle happened.

(Actually all those instances were miraculous, but this one was delicious.)

The very great miracle happened around lunchtime. A playful volunteer joked that the farm chapel he painted yellow reminded him of banana cream pie and he wished he could have some. I retorted that I’d see what I could whip up in the kitchen for lunch, but admitted we didn’t have the ingredients and turned to walk back to the farm kitchen.

God had the fixings, however, and lavished those sweet gifts on his children in simple profundity.

Two French volunteers walked up the front stone steps and brought a cardboard box of food to the kitchen. I laughed when I saw bananas inside. I unpacked the rest and came across a black bag…filled with half a pound cake! And I remembered the whipped cream in the fridge…now that’s what I call banana cream pie!

One of the other painters said at lunch it was too bad the banana cream pie lover’s wish wasn’t granted…yea, man, because dessert wasn’t out yet!

Surprise! God makes miracles with the simplest of ingredients: joy, love, childlike faith and creativity. He inspired me to make that little dessert delight, but I wouldn’t have had the idea without the clever comment from that volunteer.

And we were all happy.

The banana cream pie man told me about adventures in daily life, that everyday inconveniences could be looked at as ways to battle the enemy or amuse oneself. He also shared a G.K. Chesterton quote about childlike exaltation in the tedium of life.

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again;’ and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that He makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.

It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Last year, I cried of exhaustion from monotony, and a friend told me, “Do it again!” She reminded me to go to God for help again with the enthusiasm of a child who asks to play his favorite game or have his favorite book read to him for the umpteenth time (I’ve blogged on this previously).

So this morning was not the first time my car was immobilized. It was stuck in a snowbank three times this winter. And once, I drove a golf cart into a ditch…

And I thought, “Again? Really? Again?"

And God was like, “Yes again! Do it again! Get your car to move again! Practice patience and depend on me again! You are humbled again! You are not God (again!).”

The goat cheese I made was ruined because I was distracted and didn’t follow the directions. And I thought of other meals I destroyed in distraction. And God said, “Do it again! Forgive yourself again!”

Dirt covered my flip-flops so I could not see them. And I thought of the countless items St. Anthony found when I’d lost patience and given up the search on my own. And God said “Again! Do it again! Don’t give up the search! I am with you, here, very close! Again and again!”

God reminded me in today’s mistakes that I need forgiveness again and again. When I get impatient and think I can depend on myself, He shows me He is the only way to joy. He never changes—and that is not boring!

When I open my eyes like a child to her Daddy, He shows me again and again that when I depend on Him, He helps me and gives me boundless joy.

Today He showed me through an inventive banana cream pie and the miracle of a humorous volunteer's  joke that He loves me.

Today the sun rose. Today I am alive. Today I thank God for the miracles and miraculous mishaps that help me grow again and again.

Painted chapel