This Loaf is So Good!

It's fall (though it may not seem like it with all this heat!) and Grace has been wanting all the fall specials.  We’ve had tomato soup with grilled cheese, chicken pot pie, and all sorts of pumpkin spice things.  I made some pumpkin spice muffins (which were delicious!) and a pumpkin spice bread.  

As you might have guessed a lot of the things that were made had to use an oven.  We had to put an oven in the van.  A tip if you decide to build or buy a van and travel the country, make sure you have an oven.  Oven equals van essential.  Anyway, though we have an oven it is a bit more difficult to manage.  Not sure if it's the nature of having such a small space for an oven (which definitely is a problem in some regards) or if it's just the type of oven it is (propane and pilot lit). If you know anything about ovens and you're reading this, drop a comment and let me know what it might be. But I have tried a few things to help with the situation.  For temperature (which can be the main problem) I have put an oven thermometer.  Now I can know precisely what temp it is in the oven.  And second, I put a pizza stone in the oven.  I figure the pizza stone getting extremely hot can act as a regulator for the temperature in the oven (i can’t take credit for that though, a fellow vanlifer hooked me up with that tip).  It seems to be helping.  My cookies don’t turn out as blackened on the bottoms haha! 

With the addition of those tools to help in my baking, space has become even less possible to manage in the oven.  And here is where the problem began for me in making my pumpkin loaf.  I found this awesome recipe for a pumpkin protein loaf and decided to make it.  It filled a standard loaf pan.  I put the bread in the oven and waited, it barely fit.  As the bread began to cook it did what bread does, rise.  When the bread was close to the time of it being done I went to check on it and the dough had risen and pressed against the top of the oven!  I was so disappointed!  I tried pulling it out and ended up scraping the whole top of the bread off! Grace calmed me down though and I then assessed the situation and tried to figure how I could get this bread to work in this small spaced oven.  I eventually was able to lower the rack (in a position that wasn’t exactly the way the manufacturer intended) and the loaf had enough room to rise without scraping the ceiling of the oven (though by now it may not have happened how I had the rack originally because it all came off on top of the oven anyway!) 

When the bread was finally done, I pulled it out the oven and let it cool.  Then Grace and I had a slice.  Surprisingly, it was delicious!  I was astonished!  I guess all that fuss worked out because we ate the bread and Grace actually said it was one of the best desserts I’ve made.  

I think God sees people like this pumpkin bread.  And we should too. When I pulled the bread out it was a bit rough around the edges.  It was torn on the top, a little burnt on the ends and deformed in the middle.  But it tasted oh so good. First Samuel in the Old Testament of the Bible has the account of David being anointed the next king of Israel.  In this story we find that he doesn’t appear to be the right fit for the job because of how he looks.  This was in contrast to the reigning king Saul who was tall, dark, and handsome.  David was small and redheaded.  When Samuel came to anoint him he went before David’s brothers first.  And when he saw the oldest he thought “this has got to be the guy!” But God spoke to Samuel and said 

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  

That’s my pumpkin bread! And that's us! We may be undignified, we may bear some scars,  we may not be what the world would prize, but that doesn’t matter.  It’s not about what we look like, whether good or bad, but it is about our heart.  Do we love Jesus first? Then do we love people? Are we genuine in our actions? Do we resolve to follow after Chrsit, to mimic him in every way we can? If this is our heart, if we trust in Jesus this fully, then everything else falls into place.

That pumpkin bread was good! No matter how bad it looked.  Can I say the same about my character (i.e. my heart)?