Making Supper

"Mom, I want to make supper tomorrow night!"  Anna announced. 

That was how it began.

After poring over cookbooks for a little while, with her mother helping her, Anna decided she would make a dish called Chicken Etti (at least that's what I think it is called), with Lima Beans on the side and followed by chocolate pudding.  A feast fit for a doctor and his wife, if I may say so.

Tuesday evening she was really excited as she put the pieces of chicken and the rice in a nine by sixteen pan, covered it with aluminum foil and put it in the oven.  Then she carefully beat up the chocolate pudding.

Then, she set the table, carefully choosing the right cups and plates for each person.

An hour and a half later, Elaine opened the oven door and took the pan out.  Anna was almost dancing with delight as Elaine lifted the covering from the top of the dish.

"Oh dear," Elaine said.  "It isn't done."

The chicken was still raw.  It turned out that the bottom coil on our oven had burned out.  The top was still working, but not giving out enough heat to cook the chicken -- at least not in an hour and a half.

"It's all spoiled!"  Anna wailed with tears in her eyes.

It is awfully easy to get discouraged when you work hard to try to do something good and then it just doesn't work out.  Galatians 6:9 says "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we don't give up."

So many times we spend time and give effort, only to have our actions flop, or be misinterpreted, or just not work out.  It is easy to think that it just isn't worth it to try to do good things in this world.

But it is.

Someday, we will reap the seed we have sown.  Far better that that seed should be full of good things than that it is the result of a self-centered life that does little good for anyone else.