A labor of love.

A labor of love is when you do something because you love. I love my friends, family and those I do life with. Well, there are also a lot of people I love that I don't get to do life with nearly as much as I would like to, and so I labor for them from afar and then mail them the results. I mail them my Biscotti.

So, every holiday season I attempt to bake. Baking is a lot of work, "labor of love". Prep time and clean up time are the worst. Next to that, the waiting while baking is time consuming. I've never really thought of baking as fun. I consider baking work. A true labor of love. I'm really good at baking, but it is so time consuming, for things that I really shouldn't eat any way, and for the most part I don't. I do however, love those I bake for. I love giving my baked goods to others. They throughly enjoy them and that is my reward. Every year they are the most requested gift.

Thinking about all of this, caused me to think about my life. I certainly am not growing younger. Who will continue this tradition? Who can I hand this "labor of love" over to, so all the request are filled. Will I only be missed when the cookies don't show up? Just kidding. However, in reality it's really all the ingredients that go into the cookies that makes them great. It's also how they are blended together, and what temperature I allow them to cool to before I cut them. Then how long they are re-baked, and cooled, before they are iced. Even if I gave someone the recipe, the cookies wouldn't be the same. 

See we are not all to be the same. There are different ingredients that go into each of us. Some of us have had opportunities others have not. Some of us have been through some heat, and fire, that others have not experienced. Still there are those that have been cut on, but never made it to the icing of life. God is the one in charge. He alone decides our purpose. But, then it is up to us to work with what we have been given. It is up to us to yield to His hand, and divine purpose for our life.

Today allow me to challenge you to submit to whatever the will of God is for your life. Go ahead and go through the process God has set before you. He considers this process that He has mapped out for you, His "labor of love". God wants you to be a gift to the world. God wants you to be all that He has planned. Yield to the process. All the ingredients are what makes you, who you are, and they are important. Leave one thing out, and you wouldn't be the same, anymore than my Biscotti's would be the same if I left out the oranges. No one ever mentions the oranges, but they are in there. I know you wish this or that hadn't become part of your history, but it's in there and with God...He makes all things work for your good and the good of others. You are a labor of love to the world.