Last Friday, we had some family members coming over for dinner and I wanted to make something special for dessert. Since I was cooking up a storm for dinner, it was tempting to choose one of my easy, tried and tested desserts, like chocolate fondue with fresh fruit and marshmallows…………
Or choc-dipped strawberries, with raspberries and profiteroles (bought from Coles or Woolies)………..
Or I could have considered a more complicated theme cake to impress everyone, like my friend’s thongs she whipped up for her daughter’s birthday party on Saturday, complete with “arrowroot biscuit sand”………
But just as I was contemplating all of this, I remembered the lovely gift my husband had brought home for me just the day before! I now have another 200 cupcake recipes for my test kitchen, in addition to my other 500 or so, as part of my search for the perfect recipe………..
So I thought I’d better get a move on, as I’d been a bit slack in the cupcake baking department of late. Since I had some lovely chocolate in the pantry, one of my favourite sweet ingredients, I decided I would try the decadent “chocolate fudge cupcake” recipe……….
Looking okay, but they didn’t rise as much as I would have liked (which of course means it wasn’t the perfect recipe!)………..
When it came time to decorate, I thought I’d try to cancel out some of the guilt by adding some healthy ingredients – flaked almonds, fresh raspberries and blueberries………..
A masterpiece I thought……………
The verdict? Everyone loved them! Hooray!!
However, when I interrogated a few people more closely, the feedback was that although delicious, since I’m looking for the PERFECT recipe, the cake texture itself could have been a bit more light and fluffy. When I say, interrogated, that’s exactly what I did apparently – we all had a good laugh, as I was fondly labelled head of the “cupcake police”!
Cupcakes come in so many flavours and varieties, that sometimes it’s hard to choose the best option.
Things are getting a little sticky in the cupcake department. Firstly, an abundance of people have kindly passed on their favourite cupcake recipes, but to be honest, I now have so many that I can’t remember where some of them came from. So to anyone who’s passed on a recipe, please forgive me if I can’t tell you how it turned out!
Secondly, I have so many recipes to choose from that it’s all a bit daunting. I guess I just need to choose one at a time and tick them off as I go. I must be sure to make notes as well, so that if a recipe doesn’t turn out as perfectly as I would like, I won’t accidentally repeat it a second time.
Life choices can sometimes be a bit sticky too….often, when we need to make a decision, there are so many roads to take that we don’t know which one to choose. Most people don’t like making mistakes, or making the wrong choices, which is fair enough. Like when biting into a cupcake that you’ve chosen, only to discover you don’t like it; or expending time and effort on a recipe only to find that it didn’t work. Making the wrong choice is not the end of the world, as long as you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake twice.
I got to thinking about all the things we get to choose. Will I eat that second cupcake or eat something healthy? Will I get up early and go for that brisk walk for exercise or stay in bed today? Will I pay that bill or buy a new dress I don’t really need? Will I forgive that person who hurt or offended me, or will I live my life bitter and twisted?
How awesome it is that God’s intention, when He created me, is that I would have a free will!
In the Bible, Deutoronomy 30:19, God’s Word says:
“I’m calling for heaven and earth to give witness against you this very day. I’m offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses. But I want you to choose life. Then you and your children will live.”
I have the freedom to make my own choices. I live in a free country and so I am truly blessed. I am so grateful for this privilege and my heart goes out to the masses of people on the earth who can’t boast this statement of freedom.
A few years ago, I watched a wonderful movie, Amazing Grace, which is based on the life of British politician William Wilberforce (1759-1833). Wilberforce successfully led a movement to abolish the slave trade of his time in most of the British Empire. However, unfortunately slavery was not abolished all over the world and for all time.
Today, there are still millions of slaves on the earth – child labour, child soldiers, sex slaves, domestic servants – human beings held captive against their will, with no rights, no freedom of choice over their own lives. Startling, heart-wrenching, but true!
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know” (William Wilberforce).
This made me realise that there are two types of choices that can affect us in life – the choices we make for ourselves and the choices that others make for us. Some people don’t choose for their partners to leave them, or to lose their job, or to get sick, or to be abused. These things are really tough, and we don’t get to choose everything that happens to us. What we do get to choose though, as adults in this beautiful free country, is how we handle what comes next.
I didn’t choose to get cancer, but I now choose to eat healthy food, I now choose to exercise when I can, I now choose to pay my bills before buying a new dress, I now choose to treasure my family and friends much more deeply than I ever have before……and whatever happens next, for the most part, will be a result of my own choices.
So what do I choose now?
I choose to pray for those amazing people on the earth today who are leading movements to abolish slavery and promote human rights (UN Human Rights Council, Evangelical Pastor Christine Caine’s A21 Campaign, and Watoto, to name just a few).
I choose to change things in my own life that I don’t like or that aren’t right, and to take full responsibility for my life choices and their consequences.
I choose to be aware that my freedom of choice is an amazing privilege that I should never take for granted!
