By Jessica Brodie
I write this a few days after Christmas, and my kitchen counter is still lined with leftover treats—a homemade apple pie I made in Grandma Mary’s pie dish, Christmas cookies we rolled out and decorated as a family, and gooey chocolate-chip brownies we ate with ice cream piled on top. Decadent sweetness lingers in the air.
I’m not a huge dessert person, but at Christmas, I overindulged. And I have to admit that chocolate always calls my name.
All the baking and sweet treats remind me of a dinner I attended recently at a college my daughter is considering. The school set up a table filled with gorgeously crafted desserts, and one of them was this beautiful chocolate concoction—I think a chocolate torte.
When I took a bite, my tastebuds instantly exploded in a whirlwind of creamy, rich, chocolaty happiness. I could taste so many different ingredients, yet the texture was smooth, everything blended together into a delicate culinary creation. I finished it before I even started my meal, and I have zero regrets.
If you think about it, on their own, all of those things I ate would not have tasted nearly as good. The sugar by itself, the pure chocolate by itself, the cream by itself would not have been the same. Yet combined, they tasted absolutely amazing, woven together like an art form.
Not to be a food snob, but it was way better than just plain layer cake with some chocolate icing slapped on top. Fully whipped together, every bite tasted like magic.
It reminds me a lot of what the apostle Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 when he compared God’s church to a body. Some of us are hands and some feet and some are heart; some are legs and some are brains. On our own, we can’t do much, but put us all together, and what a force to be reckoned with! And with God at our head, look out, Satan!
Think about spiritual gifts, Paul went on, and it’s much the same. Some of us are teachers and some encouragers, some are healers and some have the gift of prophecy or of speaking in tongues. We’re not all meant to have the same gift, and on its own that gift is lovely. But put all those gifts together, and wow! That’s when the real goodness happens.
Some of us try to keep our faith or our gifts separate. We relegate God to certain aspects of our life, and fun to another, and work to another. Perhaps we operate in the same circles as those with similar gifts as us.
But we’re not meant to live so compartmentalized. God intends for us to live like that delicious chocolate torte, all blended together seamlessly. Fully enmeshed, woven together.
What a gift. What beauty!
So this Christmas season, as we finish the last of our cookies and put away the decorations, let’s resist the urge to compartmentalize. Let’s allow God to blend every part of our lives together—our work, our play, our gifts, our community.
When we stop separating the spiritual from the everyday, we discover that our whole life becomes an offering, a masterpiece in the making.
That’s when we taste the fullness of what God intended all along.
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