The Cakes

Cakes are expensive.  At least cute ones are.  While getting ready for my twins’ 5th birthday they announced to me that they wanted cool cakes. 

“I want a monster!”  Twin B. 

“I want a robot!” Twin A.

But cakes are expensive.  Especially TWO cakes.  And I was not about to drop $120 on two birthday cakes.  Solution?  I’ll just do it!

I mean, I can cook.  And I’m getting better at baking.  So, why not?! I can make two layered cakes with frosting decorations even though I’ve never done that before in my life! Sure!

When I get in this kind of project mindset, my husband looks like he desperately wants to say something, anything to help make my life a little easier than what I’m about to take on.  Sometimes he’ll start to, put his hand over his mouth, and walk away.  And sometimes he’ll just nod and say, “Sure.  I know it’ll be great.” 

I love him.  A lot. 

The day came and the cakes were made and good grief it was a lot of work.  But also a lot of fun.  I had a blast and then came the party. 

And I immediately started dismissing the compliments about the cakes.  Letting them roll off my back instead of smiling and taking pride in what I had done. 

That was familiar territory to me.  An old lie that I let myself live in for too long.  The false forest of humility.   

Humility is so hard to teach.  It can get twisted so easily.  It can morph into self righteousness.  And it can warp so easily into self loathing and self abasement, which leads to fear.  I fell into this pit at a young age.   

I believed the lie that I wasn’t supposed to think of myself as good at anything, to the point that I loathed my accomplishments because it meant that I was prideful.  I couldn’t be proud of anything that I had done and be a Christian because it wasn’t supposed to be about me.  Even when I knew I had done something great, I was supposed to deny any talent, any accomplishment and pass it off as worthless. 

And pretty soon, if you start saying that everything you do is worthless and any gifts or talents that you have are worthless, you begin to accept that as truth.  That you are WORTHLESS.  That you don’t have any value.  Yes, God loves you but he loves everyone.  It’s self flagellation of the soul. 

I lived in this lie for a long time.  I lived in it for so long that I can fall back into that habit without even thinking about it.  That’s how familiar it is.  That dark forest that you’ve been tricked into believing is the path of Christ.  I remember the exact moment when, for the first time, I started looking around and questioning whether the self loathing that I had was actually how the Lord wanted me to live my life; if I really was supposed to go through life with zero confidence.  The first time I caught a glimpse of a path, a lit path, through the dark trees of self hatred.

I was reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis for the first time and if you’ve never read them, The Screwtape Letters are about a Senior devil advising a Junior devil on how to tempt the human assigned to him.  So any reference to the ‘Enemy’ is actually about God, and he covers a lot of the experiences of being human and a Christian.   

Lewis wrote, “You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of humility.  Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character.  Some talents, I gather, he really has.  Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be…By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools…the Enemy [God] wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another.  The Enemy [God] wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents – or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall.  He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.”

That BLEW my mind.  I was allowed to acknowledge that something I had created was GOOD?  That I had talents and could use them to make beautiful things?  It shook me to my core. 

And I’m so glad it did.  That started the journey to a better understanding of not just talents and gifts and who I was in Christ but ultimately in God’s love.  That he took delight in me and in what I did (or tried) to do for Him.    Which gave way to the acknowledgment that He HAD blessed me with certain talents and that I could use them without shame, in a myriad of ways.  That it was good if I wanted to hone them and get better.  That I could look at something I created and say it was GOOD without the guilt that immediately came with it. 

So…why do I still make excuses?  Because now my problem is that I don’t want someone to think that I think it is perfect.  We’ve moved past goodness to perfection.  I now can admit when something is good but can fall into the trap of worrying whether or not a person will think I’m prideful if I fail to acknowledge the imperfections in my creation.  Absolutely ridiculous.  And it robs you of any sense of accomplishments you may have had in it in the first place! 

Instead of taking the compliments over my sons’ birthday cakes and letting myself see the good work I had done, I had to point out the errors so that I wouldn’t be seen as prideful.  And in doing so, in just making sure that they knew I knew it wasn’t perfect, I made it about me, instead of about a great cake for my kids. 

And you know, I did a pretty good job. I had never tried anything like that before in my life and at the time, I was proud of myself.  But by the end of the party, I had lost that.  I had listened to my own words and now all I saw were imperfections.  THAT is not what the Lord wants. 

I had made those cakes to make my twins smile, and their friends too, and allowed my own self doubt and fear and hatred to rob that joy from me.  And to potentially rob that joy from them!  Because what if they heard me?  They thought the cake was pretty cool but then mom was saying it wasn’t.  Well, maybe it’s not cool.  Maybe I’m silly for thinking so….

Fortunately, I get another chance in a couple of weeks.  My oldest will be turning seven and has requested a cake from me as well.  And I’m nervous to tackle it but really excited too.  And this time, THIS TIME, I won’t brush off the compliments. 

I’ll allow the work I did to shine and just smile, say thank you, and say how much fun I had making it; completely staying clear of the dark forest and walking with joy down the path of Christ, cake in hand. 

*Update: I made my oldest’s cake and though I felt the urge to explain away its imperfections, I didn’t! I saw how great it looked and when others commented on it, I just said, “Thank you!” I was able to enjoy my work and allowed others to enjoy it as well. I hope I remember this lesson. I hope with every cake I make over the years I remember to enjoy the process and allow the good work to be acknowledged. It also makes the cake taste better too. :)