My Favorite Holiday Recipe

@audreycfrank

Our family has one secret recipe.

I gladly share all the others with friends, but this recipe is top-secret, and only my children will carry it on. It tells the story of our love and our life, and one day, our legacy. 

Deep in the bush of Africa as a new bride, I had to figure out how to meet my husband’s need for chocolate. Over time I developed a moist, dark and delectable chocolate cake slathered with chocolate gravy (a nod to my great-grandmother, who used to indulge me as a little girl on Saturday mornings with biscuits and homemade chocolate gravy). I learned to make it with the most basic ingredients, findable in most parts of the world.

I have baked it on an open fire in our dusty Kenyan village, inside a large aluminum pot with a lid, the cake pan carefully balanced inside atop tin cans, immersed in a few inches of water for a steam bake. 

I have baked it on a single camp stove burner inside a homemade dutch oven in our mud house. I perfected it in a kitchen with no electricity or running water.

Once in North Africa after returning home from a trip out of town, I caught our culture program students pilfering my kitchen looking for the recipe. Much to their disappointment, they never found it. 

You see, my secret recipe isn’t written down. The ingredients and procedure are in my head, and now, I show my daughter and sons how to make it as I stand beside them in the kitchen, cracking eggs, stirring, and whisking. We laugh and remember, and they listen as I recount tales of Africa and all the ways God has brought us this far. And as we bake, we are filled with expectation and comfort that he will continue to lead us in marvelous, faithful ways.

I want my secret recipe to one day be as natural to my children as it now is to me, and just as comforting.

These days, I make our special cake in a luxurious kitchen that has two ovens to choose from. I can use a normal rectangular cake pan and the butter and chocolate I need are plentiful on the shelves of the grocery store just five minutes from my house. Making my secret recipe is easy now.

There is another recipe I have memorized, perfected, practiced in many places over time in my life. It was handed down to me by my heavenly Father, and it belongs to all his children. It is no secret, but not many take time to use it.

Over the years, I have tried it and tested it in many places over many seasons. I share it with you today at the beginning of this holiday season in hopes it might grace your home as it has mine.

 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  -Philippians 4:6-7

Ingredients:

• Trust 
• 16 oz. anxiety
• 1 cup prayer
• 3 overflowing cups thanksgiving
• 1 bag requests, chunks or chips, your preference

Directions:

1. Spray a large baking pan generously with trust. 
2. Pour your anxiety about anything and everything into a large mixing bowl. Best when dumped all at once into the bowl.
3. Incorporate prayer into the mixture. Make sure you shake out every last drop that’s worrying you and tell God everything.
4. Petition. Keep stirring, and stirring, and stirring, and then pick up the whisk and whisk until no lumps are left.
5. Add thanksgiving, one cup at a time. If anxiety mixture is too thick, keep adding thanksgiving until desired consistency is reached.
6. Fold in your requests. (I always add extra).
7. Spread mixture into prepared pan and place in God’s hands. He’s already preheated the oven and the rest is His job.

Enjoy the finished product and share it with everyone you meet this Christmas. They will all want your recipe.