52 Dozen. Week 6.
The Newest Neighbors.
Our neighborhood has acquired a few new
families over the last three years and I must admit I haven’t been the best at
trying to get to know them or reaching out.
When the newest neighbor moved in across the
street I knew she was a single mom of two daughters. One was older and I didn’t
see her much and the other was younger, perhaps elementary school. Just a month
after she moved in another family with 4 little ones moved in two doors up the
street. When they first moved to the neighborhood we were in the adoption
process and outside both of us working full time and me being overcommitted in
several volunteer positions I felt like each evening was filled with some form
of paperwork.
I first met them as I chased our dogs around
the neighborhood (they were running from me). We were testing out a new theory
to see if we could train the dogs to stay in the yard and not wander before we
got a fence. Obviously they failed and we ended up with a fence. I remember
being on our back patio on the phone talking to my husband who was away on
business when the dogs so happily ran out of the yard and back towards the
front of the house. Of course I had to go running after them, barefoot, through
the neighborhood. I ran straight through a large pile of briar vines I had
pulled out of the lawn as a bit of surprise yard work I did for my husband
while he was gone. I was shoeless, in pain, and clearly frustrated as I chased
the dogs. The newest neighbor was in her yard with her youngest daughter who
wanted to pet the tame dog I was wringing the neck of as I escorted him to the
house. I didn’t want to be rude so I stopped to let her pet the
less-blameworthy culprit of the prank. After she pet him for 30 seconds I
rallied him into the house. Jack is definitely my less adventurous dog but I
still had to go chasing after Maggie, my much more rebellious thrill-seeker. I
found her in another neighbor’s yard taunting Princess, their street-roaming
dog. Princess is a little protective of her driveway but Maggie, filled with
gumption, proceeded to poop smack dab in the middle of their yard as Princess
charged after her from the house. I tactfully distracted the neighbor by
talking about the stupid dog running off so he didn’t notice the massive dump
she just left in his yard. After she did her deed and Princess was nearing, she
ran at me as if I was there to protect her. I gave a good, almost believable,
laugh about the incident and went inside with the scruff of Maggie’s neck in my
hand and sat down on the couch in a sigh of relief.
What a first impression huh?
Throughout the last two years my husband helped
this neighbor do a few things like shovel her driveway from ice/snow and fix
and rehang the tire swing she bought for her daughter but I still never worked
up the courage to make friends. Because of our ‘story’ and how easily the
question of children comes up from curious onlookers of couples who have none I
spent a season not really interested in inviting new people into the audience
of our ‘story.’ Through that stage in life I felt as if we had few friends, or
at least few friends we let close to us out of fear of being misunderstood by
the loss we were going through but simultaneously called to do something
different with our family. I also didn’t want to explain myself and our
adoption (and the path God brought us on to get there) to people who I barely
knew so making friends wasn’t really on my to-do list.
The following year I didn’t invest myself into
becoming friends because just as temperatures were dropping into what I call my
“hibernation months” I learned I was miraculously pregnant with our son. I had
to go through hormone treatments multiple times each day and we chose not to
announce until I was to the half-way point. So again, making friends really
wasn’t on my to-do list.
This past year I had a newborn and it was cold…so we stayed inside A LOT. So again…making friends wasn’t on my to-do list.
Throughout the past year as I’ve struggled to
find a good pattern between working a job I’m very passionate about outreaching
to the community, having a little person who needs every bit of my attention
and energy, and keeping my marriage fresh, fun, and loving. The first few
months I had a bit of postpartum depression that I was battling. I was so happy
to have this sweet little boy but I was overwhelmed by the expectations I had
for motherhood that I didn’t even realize I had until he was here. I expected
more friendships with more commonalities; instead I’ve found more isolation. I
expected to feel constant love and affection and this sweet little snuggly baby
that would just love me, instead I’ve found that babies are the most selfish
creatures on the planet (which I knew but not as much as I know now). Hear me
say that every day I am soooo thrilled watching my son learn, grow, and
develop more of a sweet, adventurous personality. I love him more than I can
explain, but it doesn’t negate the fact that he is selfish and everything in
life is now about him and his needs being met—it
goes without saying that this is a new change in life and a draining one.
What I realized when I took on this challenge
of baking with a purpose and truly LIVING with a purpose it meant acknowledging
all the things God has placed in my life, all the people He’s put around me,
and all the ‘chance’ happenings that He allows (and controls) to occur.
If I made my list of cookie recipients and didn’t include my neighbors
(ESPECIALLY those I hadn’t made any effort to meet), I would be seriously
missing out on WHERE God has placed my family and potentially missing out on
how I can really take His charge to ‘love my neighbor’ to a real level.
A church we attended and loved when we first
moved to NC was City Church Charlotte. They did things that were directly
linked to their church mission to be REAL, RELATIONAL, and RELIGION-FREE; that
really resonated with our faith walk as a family from the beginning and it
still does today. I want to be REAL with people, live in real life and have
real expectations for others and myself. I want my faith to be RELATIONAL, I
use that word to describe more than my relationship with Jesus Christ – it should describe my life and how Jesus has played a role
in my relationships (all of them). I want to be religion-free. I don’t want to
love my neighbor because it’s a commandment I’ve been given, I want to love my
neighbor because I see how awesome God has created them, their unique
personalities and how loving them helps me better understand a God that created
them, and myself.
Here, on Ash Wednesday, in a season of renewal
and repentance, I found I spent a lot of my bake time repenting for overlooking
them for so long and finding excuses not to reach out to them, most of them
very selfish. Each Lent I reflect on the verses out of Luke where Jesus asks
His disciples,
Each
Lent I ask myself “Who do I say You are?” and as a subsequent question I’ve asked “And how do I say it?” In years past I
would say Lent and the season of answering this question compelled me to be
more active in the community and reaching the least of these because God has
given me a heart of compassion but this year I’m already seeing how I’m
answering this question differently and nearing 30 years old this year I’m
pretty amazed at how years of a relationship with Jesus has lead me to hear Him
more clearly now baking than I did in other quests to serve and love.
“Who do the crowds say I am?” and then later
asks “But what about you? Who do YOU say I am?”
Luke 9:18-20 (NIV)
18 Once when Jesus was
praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the
crowds say I am?”
19 They replied, “Some say
John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets
of long ago has come back to life.”
20 “But what about you?”
he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s
Messiah.”
I also spent my baking time praying for newest
neighbors, their families, and their lives. I really enjoyed meeting them both
during our most recent snow day-it was a gift to finally talk to both about their
families and small talk about their lives and finding out a few things we had
in common. I found out the mom two doors down works for our local government
just like me AND has an adopted son, which is a part of a recent thread of
people God has placed in my life that have adopted. Over the last three months
I’ve met FIVE other families (all through ‘chance’ meetings or work) who have
adopted and I am LOVING that God is answering a prayer I’ve had from the
beginning of this calling-that He would intentionally put us in a position
where other children He has for our family would be surrounded by others like
them. Pretty cool that we discovered some common ground in a short conversation
with sledding children zooming by! I found out my closest neighbor, the one I
met over the runaway dog incident, is a teacher for an elementary school where
I have volunteers delivering food each week and that her oldest daughter may be
attending school to become a social worker.
I explained my year-long project as our
conversation came to a close and thanked them both for our time together, I
wanted to warn them that they would be my next recipients of baked goodness. I
was so grateful for the timing of this snow day and even apologized for not
reaching out sooner. I hope there is more in store for my friendships with
these two sweet women. With children older than mine, they surely have some
wisdom for me as our family grows. I realize now that perhaps God had no
intention to isolate me over the last year of motherhood, but rather put me in
a position to be more intentional and PRESENT with those He’s already
surrounded me by. This project is helping me do that and as I start the season
of Lent I have decided to function with less stuff (and less overthinking), embrace
simplicity, and embrace the ones God has very intentionally placed around me.
And they better prepare to be baked for this year!
The cookies this week were actually brownies…RED VELVET BROWNIES.
Red Velvet Brownies
Ingredients:
- 1 box (18.25 oz) red velvet cake mix
- 1 box of brownie mix
Directions:
1. Follow instructions on cake mix box up until
the pre-bake directions.
2. Follow instructions on brownie mix box until
the pre-bake directions.
3. MIX THE TWO BATTERS TOGETHER.
4. Add ½ cup of chocolate chips
5. Bake for about 3/4 amount of time listed on
brownie box.
DONE. Bam.
Baker’s Review:
I love how easily ANY cake mix can mix into
brownies. I decided to go with Red Velvet for one obvious reason: it’s awesome.
Mixing the batters also makes double making it easy to have something less
standard than the normal cake or brownie but making more for a crowd so it
seems fancier. We love doing this in our house, although we usually do it with
orange cake, the red velvet was a rich treat. Vince adored these brownies but
they were a bit chewier than he’s used to. I also made them in a mini-cupcake
tray (24 slots) so they were “bite size” which made him think he could take a
much bigger bite but the chewy aspect made for one over stretched cheek! He
took a nice healthy bite and loved it so he took another before chewing it,
which made him look like a chipmunk, but he finished it all very quickly with
very little mess! I found these to be quite wonderful heated up for 8 seconds.
One was also a nice treat on top of ice cream. Overall, if you’re looking for
something VERY rich and satisfying with only one bite, these are your best bet!
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