May 2013 Column

This column was published in the Gaston Gazette on Mother's Day, 2013.

Headline: "The key ingredient was love"

My mother is known to her daughters as Mama, and to her grandchildren as Maw Maw. So I will refer to her as both of those names throughout this column.

There is a "Maw Maw Mystery" that I have been pondering for years. Here it is:   
Why does everything taste better at Maw Maw's house? I can make the same dish from the identical recipe. And, without exception, the dish will always taste better when Maw Maw makes it in her kitchen.

One of Maw Maw's secrets is to use whatever she has in stock. If I ask her how she made a dish, it is very likely that she will laugh and say, "I didn't make it exactly by the recipe. I just used what I had!" When she recently told me that she wasn't sure if she had the ingredients for a dish, I asked her what she had done with my Mama who would surely just use what she had.

In a recent interview, my son was asked, "What is the best advice you were ever given?" He immediately replied, "Use what you have." And, that sage advice from Maw Maw has become an ingrained philosophy in his culinary creations, as well as in other facets of life.

Everything that Mama makes is seasoned with love. When I turned 13, she made a birthday cake for me, as she did for each of her daughters every year.
But, to her dismay, this labor of love fell to pieces. The note that Mama wrote and placed by the shattered cake is a treasured memory for me. It simply said, "This cake is so full of love that it fell apart."  In my young teenage mind, there could not have been a more beautiful cake in the world.

Several years ago, Mama's Christmas gift to each of her four daughters was a recipe notebook titled, "Some of My Favorites".  Each of the 30 pages contained one of her favorite recipes penned in her own handwriting. At the bottom of each page, Mama wrote a favorite scripture verse. Those recipe notebooks are priceless heirlooms. And, since that Christmas, Mama has added recipes to our notebooks and has started compiling recipe notebooks for her grandchildren too.

Mama's advice to use what we have reminds me of Jesus. He had the power and authority to speak things into existence. In fact, the wind, waves, demons, disease, and even death responded to His voice. But sometimes He chose to use what He had to accomplish His purpose. Turning water into wine comes to mind. And He multiplied the loaves and fish that the little boy already had in order to feed thousands of hungry people.

Just as love is the seasoning in everything that Mama does for us, love was behind all that Jesus did, including paying a debt for us that He did not owe. The Scripture verse that is written on Mama's sweet potato pudding recipe page reminds me that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

Yes, God used what He had...Jesus...to provide a way for us. And, the key ingredient was love.