I am not a food blogger. In fact, those who know me well would laugh in the face at that statement. Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh. I am the antithesis of that title. I cook what I must to feed my ravenous family and myself. I wouldn’t even consider myself a blogger. I’m a novel writer who purges my thoughts on the page every once and again when I think someone else might nod along with them.

There are friends of mine who are food bloggers and foodies and all around amazing chefs who could have their own cooking shows or publish cookbooks. I like to go to their homes, sit at their tables and eat their food, then I’ll sweep up the crumbs of the homemade meal that I devoured or wash the dishes after I lick my plate.

But I’ve often felt that I should be a five-star short order cook. That I should innately understand what spices meld together to make that mouthwatering aroma. I want to be able to make those picture-perfect chocolate chip cookies and set them out on a platter for children with grubby hands to pick up as they whisk by to play.

Except that’s not me.

I could probably learn—I’m okay learning if its hands-on and not just reading a Pinterest post-turned-Pinterest fail. But I’d rather read. Write. Or learn about writing, or launching my next book, or being a better (non-chef) parent and wife. And yet the struggle is constant. Because…social media, and blogs, and celebrity moms who are doing it all and still cooking fabulous meals for their model children and movie star friends.

At least the struggle was constant. Until I heard a podcast by Steven Furtick. This preacher, this speaker to tens of thousands, talked about how long he was bothered by being a man who doesn’t know his way around a toolbox. The male version stereotype of my own insecurity. Then he said, “But hand me a microphone…” And the crowd exploded, as did my own weighted comparisons.

You see, I may not do a lot with a skillet, but hand me a blank page and I can craft another world, create a new life.

Don’t we allow ourselves to be shoved into the box of other people’s expectations? We allow stereotypes and cultural images and books and movies and everything else to define what we should like, who we should be. What kind of friend, spouse, parent, cook we should be. And yet we are the exact mold of who God handcrafted us to be.

If we stop listening to the shouts of others—the college degree we should get but doesn’t match the passion of our hearts, the hobby we should have that bores us to tears—then we can peel back the layers to discover ourselves.

Yes, darling. You get to tell the truth about what you love and who you are and what you dream about. What I’m learning is that you have to stop doing a whole lot of things to learn what it is you really love, who it is you really are. Many of us go years and years without even asking these questions, because the lives we’ve fallen into have told us exactly who to be and what to love and what to give ourselves to….

I’m finding that one of the greatest delights in life is walking away from what someone told you you should be in favor of walking toward what you truly love, in your own heart, in your own secret soul.

~Present Over Perfect, by Shauna Niequist

Dear friends, if our time is spent wishing that we could cook that delectable dish just because others can, then we miss out on that beautiful talent that God wove into our very fingerprints, the thing that you and only you can do. Your talent, your gift, is as unique as the DNA filling up your cells. Use it. Share it. The world needs it. The world needs you.

So, Be You.

 

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