A Beautiful Disaster

I made banana bread a few days ago. I make it so often that I’ve become very familiar with the recipe. This time I made so many mistakes that could have been easily avoided and the baking process was an absolute mess. I won’t lie to you, I almost cried a few times. The first problem I ran into had to do with the bananas. They were barely overripe and a banana bread calls for very overripe bananas. There was a risk that the banana bread wouldn’t be sweet enough. The next problem was that I was using the wrong type of sugar. I used granulated sugar even though the recipe called for brown sugar. I had to double the amount of sugar to emulate the rich sweetness of the brown sugar. The final and by far the worst mistake was that I forgot to add the butter until it was almost too late. The butter usually goes in first with the sugar and they’re mixed together and then everything else is added.

What I did next made me cringe. I took the chunk of butter and plopped it into the liquid batter. I knew it would be a disaster. I quickly grabbed a whisk and tried to whisk away all the pieces of butter but they were still highly visible and it looked disgusting. Honestly. I was ready to throw the mixture out and forget about the banana bread I was craving so much. I thought I’d made too many horrifying mistakes. But, then I decided that I would add the dry ingredients and see how the batter would turn out. The batter ended up looking okay but I still wasn’t sure if the banana bread would even taste good at all. I buttered the pan, put the mixture in the oven and prayed for the best. If it came out terribly, at least I tried.

Here’s the plot twist. The banana bread not only came out okay, it was the best banana bread I’d ever made! For a moment, I was baffled. The mixture I wanted to throw out produced the best banana bread ever. How could that be possible?

Hopeless Beginning -> Beautiful End

I like to call my banana bread a beautiful disaster. Honestly, it seemed so hopeless but the end product was far beyond perfect. I don’t know what stage of life you’re in right now. Maybe you’re at the stage of giving up and throwing in the towel. Maybe it seems that there’s no way your life could possibly get any better. Perhaps, you feel like you’ve made too many mistakes to recover. Well, today I’m here to tell you that it’s never too late. God can and will take the messy places of your life, turn them around and use them for His glory to make you greater than you’ve ever been before.

So, hang in there and trust your God. He gives you the strength to push forward and overcome. I understand that today from where you stand, it looks impossible. But, I want you to know that God sees it differently. He sees that it’s possible. So, will you believe that today? Your life doesn’t make sense, I know,  but God knows what He’s doing. He’s making you into something so much greater than what you can see now.