Saturday, April 9, 2016

When I Burned A Lasagna For Jesus


It's true confession time, y'all. I was peeling potatoes just now for our church's Friend's Day potluck tomorrow afternoon (SHAMELESS PLUG, if you're in or around Gulf Breeze, Florida tomorrow morning around 9:30 and want to join us you definitely should. Our pew is huge and we would LOVE to shuffle down for you. My crew stations up in the back and we are the rowdiest bunch of kids and constantly shushing adults in the entire place. Come as you are- because you'll fit right in with me and my husband and our rowdy hoodlums.) when I remembered back about a decade ago when I brought one of my first casserole dishes to a Dinner-on-the-Grounds. 

It was a badly burned lasagna.  

I was a newlywed so y'all can cut me a little slack. I shopped and chopped and assembled my sweet little pasta dish and then somehow after what was probably like 2.5 hours in a 550° oven, it came out looking like one of those "This is your brain on drugs." commercials. Bless my heart, I was so crestfallen. I may have cried. Nothing takes the wind out of a new wife's sails faster than a charred casserole dish. True story. It's depressing.

I was broken hearted, but we were running behind so I shoved it into my Corningware insulated carrier and dashed out the door. We made it to the building and I placed my humble offering at the verrrrrrrrry end of the serving table while I prayed no one would see and connect me to the disasterous dish I was setting down. 

Bible class and worship ended and the meal began. I made my way through the line and when I finally got to my dish I saw that there had been a few brave, sweet souls that had taken a few scoops of my charcoaled cheese extravaganza. I breathed a little sigh of relief, and found a seat to eat...right next to someone with a blackened scoop of my lasagna on their plate. Criminals under interrogation have sweated less than I did through that meal. My victim did take one small bite and then just sort of pushed the rest to the edge of his plate. (I couldn't blame him. I took some, but it was more out of guilt and obligation. And it really was terrible.) 

As everybody cleaned up, I collected my nearly full pan of untouched lasagna and smuggled it out of that fellowship hall. I was the 007 of church potlucks that day, y'all. The next time a Dinner-on-the-Grounds rolled around, I tried again and was much more successful. Thank heavens. 

THANK HEAVENS.

Looking back, I'm glad I took a chance and burned that lasagna. I'm glad I took that leap out of my comfort zone and tried to do something that was new and hard for me. It took work, and loads more mistakes happened between then and now, but I believe who I am today is because of the effort I started to put forth back then. 

So if you're intimidated by something, let me encourage you with my humble and rocky and awful tasting beginnings. Go ahead! Burn a lasagna of your own! Bring a disgusting looking dish to a potluck. Sew some pathetic looking napkins. Plant tomatoes that die in a month. Paint your bedroom a horrible shade of green. Read a book with a terrible ending. Cut your hair. Cut your kid's hair. Cut up your credit cards. 

Just take a leap. Take a chance. TRY SOMETHING NEW. You'll look back at yourself in a decade or so and laugh and be an even better version of yourself. You'll absolutely screw things up but you'll be happier because of it. I promise. Or maybe that's just me. But I don't think so. ::wink::

Thanks for stopping by y'all, Katie. 

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