CAN YOU BELIEVE IT…….IT BEGAN WITH COOKIE DOUGH

My story will take us back almost 41 years.   This is where my Divine encounters began.  God had them planned all along, but He needed to get my attention first.   So, he began with speaking in my kitchen to my heart.

My husband (Peter) and I had been married only a couple of months.   Our home was being filled with people travelling from New Zealand on a pretty regular basis who were coming to Canada for a holiday.   The culture of hospitality by New Zealanders back then was to invite people to stay in your home, and not to allow friends stay in a hotel.    

We soon learned to be alert to a New Zealand accent when we answered the phone.  If we heard the New Zealand accent on the other end of the telephone, it meant that people were either calling on their way to the airport for their flight to Canada…..or…….on their arrival at our local airport, or the Greyhound bus terminal off times without any prior notice.

I need to point out that all of those who came for a visit were known only by my husband, but soon I would get to know them well after they spent time with us in our home.     Our first home was very small (cozy might be a better word, even tiny) with one bathroom.

People that would come for a 7-l4 day stay resulted in a closeness that’s unique usually only to “family.”     Due to the number of people that would arrive, we sometimes needed to implement a “time restraint” for restroom (bathroom) privileges to accommodate those in waiting.

My encounter with God…or I should I say, His encounter with me came around l0 pm one evening at my kitchen sink.   Our visitors at the time as well as my husband had turned in for the night.  

Cookie dough and I were wrapping things up at a sink full of bowls and dishes and my hands were filled with the cookie mess.  I was having a first class “pity party”.   You see before I was married, I was involved in a number of exciting ventures.   In contrast, this evening found me alone, tired and wondering how my efforts in the kitchen would or could ever reach a world with the love of God.  

Tears began to flow and I kept sniffing away to be sure and keep them from becoming part of the cookie mixture.

I can still remember it as though it happened last night.   I was looking out my kitchen window into the darkness and this thought came into my mind:

             WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND?

I knew right away that this was God speaking softly to my heart.  I remember saying through my tears, without any thought…..COOKIE DOUGH LORD….that’s what’s in my hands…that’s all I have to offer you.

Very clearly He responded, “I CAN USE COOKIE DOUGH OR WHATEVER IS IN YOUR HANDS…..IF YOU JUST GIVE IT TO ME & WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.”

Instantly I had peace.  I finished baking the cookies and went off to bed.

The next day I didn’t say anything to anyone, but I was reminded of the question at my sink.   I got to thinking that this was the same question God asked Moses when he was holding a staff in his hand to herd sheep.   God knew what was in Moses’ hand, but He wanted Moses to see what was in his hand.    God knew that all I had in mine was cookie dough.  

Later that morning God nudged me in my thoughts and said “Take half of the cookies you made to your next door neighbor!”   My response:  “But I don’t them and I should at least be familiar with them or even introduced in order to do that.”   “You will, after you take them the cookies.”   End of dialogue.  

After sorting out two dozen cookies and wrapping them in foil, I shifted one leg ahead of the other and started the long walk next door to my Canadian neighbor.   I knocked on the door (heart palpitations increasing).  

When the door opened I introduced myself as the new neighbor next door.   I thought neighbors were to reach out to the new neighbors but I found out that God doesn’t always work like that.  His ways are so radically different.

I told my neighbor I just wanted to share some cookies I had baked last night and I nervously handed over the package.   She took it, remarked with a soft-spoken thanks and closed the door. 

This went on for months.  Each week or so I’d take over cookies, muffins, half a cake…whatever I was making for my husband and I.

Each time I went over little by little, the woman became friendlier.    After a few months, she one day invited me in for coffee and in the following months we progressed to dinners, barbeques and then wall papering together.

About ten months later when my husband was out of the country, to my complete surprise, they asked me to attend some Christian outreach event that had been widely advertised.  I went.   It was a like a Canadian Billy Graham Crusade conducted by a Canadian evangelist Terry Winter.  At the end of the evening those present were asked that if they realized their need of God’s forgiveness and need for His presence in their lives to come forward.  

To my utter surprise, they both got up and headed toward the front of the arena.   After this evangelist prayed with the mass of people, they returned to where I was seated.

As we were walking out of the coliseum to the parking lot, the neighbor man asked me, “Do you want to know what it was that made us want to attend this event and to give our lives to Christ tonight?”   

“Yes” was about all I could get out.  I had been praying diligently every Thursday for them….but I just couldn’t imagine why all of a sudden they were interested in God.  My neighbor’s reply….”It was THE COOKIES.”   “You just kept loving us through desserts and we’d never experienced before someone reaching out like that to us…..strangers.”

I know without any shadow of doubt our prayers DO MAKE a difference and they open diverse opportunities for God’s purposes and plans to unfold.

I never realized that when God speaks to our heart it’s always profound.  That night at the kitchen sink, when He quietly asked me in my heart, “what’s in your hand,” I realized later that,

–         He knew what was in my hands….…cookie dough and

–         He  wanted  “me” to see that whatever was in “my” hands or

whatever I was doing, creating or working on, regardless of where I was……… He could use whatever it was to CREATE A CLIMATE for another person to be open toward Him.

God’s assignments for my husband and I have been in many and varied locations.   Little did I realize that those few thoughts from Him…just in a quiet way that night at the kitchen sink, would change my attitude and give me a real compass for MY LIFE’S MISSION. 

I can’t reach everyone, but I can go to the  “next doors”  in whatever neighborhood God places us,  or touch those He brings in front of me…whether it’s a kitchen, an office…a board room,  or a hospital.  God is so practical!

I’m learning in the “every day of life” ….. as Carl Buechner once said:“PEOPLE MAY FORGET WHAT YOU TEACH, BUT THEY WILL NEVER FORGET HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.