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Pancakes for Breakfast

 

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My husband told our children that we might have pancakes for breakfast this morning.  Might.  

Needless to say we overslept and granola with milk won out.  I told my daughter not to worry we would have pancakes for lunch.  She told me this was unacceptable, the day was not the same without pancakes for breakfast.  She told me in fact that she would not accept this; so in the time it would have taken me to make the pancakes, we sat down for a lesson on how to deal with life when it turns out other than you would have ordered it.  Boy, was I preaching to the choir.  Lately my life has been a series of “life turning out other than how I would have ordered it”  followed by sinful behavior (self-pity, selfish indulgence, silent treatments, the hardening of my heart) because somewhere along the line I decided this “life turning out not how I would have ordered it” was unacceptable.      

The problem with not getting what you want when you want it and not accepting it is...you really don’t have a choice.  If there are not pancakes for breakfast, there are not pancakes for breakfast.  

It was good to be in church today.  It was good for my daughter because they had donuts which made up for the pancake ordeal.  It was good for me because it helped me realize the good news of Jesus answers the “how to” question that I could not answer for her in our morning discussion.  

It is hard to accept what we feel is “unacceptable”.  I have spent years trying to try harder to just accept it.  I have tried stuffing it, analyzing it, praying over it.  The problem is, most of the time I still can’t do it.

What I realized in church today was, it doesn’t matter how hard or how little I try, there is only one way my heart will ever be able to accept circumstances I otherwise deem unacceptable, and that is...if Jesus, who died for my sin, fills the areas of my heart that are blocking that acceptance.

It might happen over night, it might happen over years.  It always happens by His grace.  

I know I will wake up tomorrow with some kind of a “pancake” on my mind, something I think I want that may or may not be on the menu.  Some days it is pancakes, some days it is plain old granola.   Either way, there is One who can do what I could never do, and that is, continue to transform me from the inside out.

Christ died on the cross to atone for my sins, for the sins of all who will accept His gift of atonement, and because of this atonement I am God’s child.  On those days I long for pancakes, God still longs for me.  Perhaps there will be pancakes for lunch.  Perhaps glimpses of goodness this side of Heaven only whet my appetite for the feast to come.

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“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.”  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”  Lamentations 3:22-25 

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Hope for pancakes or what have you, but above all hope in the Lord, because even if this is not a pancake day, it is a day of grace.  Grace sent Jesus to earth to make unacceptable people acceptable to a Holy God.  Grace changed everything, and it still does.

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(Reference in English Standard Version)