Poison Cheesecake

Freshman year of high school I was more interested in sports and studying than in fashion. Sophmore year, I started thinking about hair and clothes, but was still more focussed on my gradepoint and how fast I could run a 5K. Therefore, it seemed pretty amazing when one of the more popular boys in our class approached me in the hallway and asked if I wanted to go to the dance on Friday night. I was so surprised that I could barely stammer "Yes", however I managed to contain my excitement enough to be able to accept his invitation. Imagine my hurt and embarrassment when he said, "Well have fun then," and walked away laughing.

I thought I had the right answer, but apparently I hadn't really understood the question. That boy was playing a cruel joke, making fun of the "nerd/jock", tricking me into thinking he was asking me to the dance. It was one of those semantic nuances, not "Do you want to go to the dance WITH ME", rather just simply saying "Do you want to go to the dance." By answering affirmatively, I gave him a laugh and I experienced a pang of shame and foolishness. I wish I could tell my younger self to "chin up" and hold out the promise that I would have the strength to get through that situation, as well as many others, with strength and grace.

We don't have the capability to pass on messages through time though, and often we don't know if we can get through a trial until we've actually gone through that trial! Perhaps that is why the verse "For we walk by faith and not by sight" speaks to me so powerfully. It's like the famous "Footprints" poem, it is often in looking back that we are able to see how God carried us through.

I was reminded of this in the past week after I baked a cheesecake for my downstairs neighbors. We are usually quiet and respectful, however my daughters had an exciting sleepover and I was concerned that my neighbors had been bothered by our noise. A favorite thing of mine is baking desserts, so I made a chocolate, chocolate chip cheesecake. My own mouth was watering as it came out of the oven! I wrote a note of apology for our exhuberance of the previous night, and went down to knock on the neighbors' door. Their dog barked, and I heard them hush him, however after several minutes, they still hadn't come to the door. I decided to just leave it there for them.

An hour later, I headed to church for a meeting and noticed the cheesecake still hanging from its' bag on their doorknob. I debated with myself, and ended up deciding to leave the cake there while I headed to my meeting. Surely they would come out soon and find it.

Several hours later I returned from the meeting, and the cake was still there on the door! It seemed kind of late to be knocking again, so I went on upstairs. Once in my apartment, I began thinking, what if the cheesecake had spoiled by now, and the neighbors found it, ate it, and got sick? What if I had wanted to do something nice and ended up giving them a poison cheesecake?! After arguing with myself, I finally decided to sneak back downstairs and quietly remove that cheesecake from their doorknob. It would have been quite comical to observe the slow tiptoeing down to their door and the fast sprint back to my own!

The funniest part is that my neighbors never knew about this behind the scenes drama. They never complained about any noise, and they never learned about the delicious cheesecake I had waiting for them. My daughters kid me because I seem to find "God moments" in the everyday, absurdities of life, and this class I'm taking has me wondering if I should be relating to God more in an intellectual sense. However, God doesn't seem to sit on a desolate mountaintop to me. He seems to be in the everyday things, like the crazy "poison" cheesecake on my neighbors door. How often does He do incredible things for us? How many times is something waiting beyond the "door", but we just don't take the time to open it, to answer His knock? Sometimes we are afraid of what is behind the door. We don't know if we have the strength to walk out into our day. And yet, our God is not a God of cautious love, He loves us extravagantly. He loves us with "chocolate, chocolate chip cheesecake" love! May we have the courage to open the door.