I'm Making The Stuffing: Starting Something New

I've never made stuffing in my life. Growing up I never even liked it. Somehow it's a part of most Thanksgiving dinners, ours included. My wife makes a great stuffing. It has meat in it. I never knew stuffing could have meat, but it's a real game changer. Normally on Thanksgiving she's up early cooking while I'm cleaning and enjoying listening to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the radio. (Not really. Who ever made the decision to put a parade on the radio?)

Anyway, she cooks and I clean. We keep a relatively clean home, but my wife can walk into a room that I feel is fine and declare it filthy, so I know I have to be on my "A Game." Finally, she'll race to get ready for our guests, and it's my job to sort of monitor the food. This requires extensive taste testing and then repositioning the food so as to not reveal my nibbling.

None of this will happen tomorrow. My wife is in Puerto Rico working with Convoy of Hope's disaster relief team. She's passionate about missions, and the island is where she grew up. She will be spending Thanksgiving with her family there, and I'll be with our NY family. This brings us back to the stuffing. We've decided to divide the menu up among everyone. By we, I mean we're all making whatever my niece told us to make, and I got the stuffing.

Every expert was at one time a beginner.

No one begins anything as a professional. The only way anyone ever became really good at anything was to first be willing to try something new. We readily do this as children, but as we get older we often become unwilling. We simply fall into ruts where we work the same jobs, maintain the same hobbies, eat the same foods, and do the same things we've always done. Fear of failure cripples us. At one time we dreamed of playing the piano, painting a painting, writing a book, or a thousand other things that later seem out of reach.

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin." Zechariah 4:10

About 4 months ago I began writing this blog. I didn't know if anyone would read it, and at first only a handful did. Since then it's grown to where hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people read them. It never could have happened if I didn't begin. Over the next few months I have other new things I'll begin. I'm a little scared of a couple of them, because I'm not sure how they'll work out. I'll never know unless I try though, so I'm going for it and trusting for Father to direct my path.

Some of them may take a little time. But, "Little by little," is a Biblical phrase that God uses more than once to describe how he does things, so I know things don't have to all come together at once. 

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done." Ecclesiastes 11:4

So tomorrow I'll make the stuffing. I've found a good recipe, and bought the ingredients. How will it turn out? I don't know yet. But then again, you never know how anything will turn out until you go for it. 

What's that something you've been afraid to do? What are you waiting for? It's time to begin.

Following the Son,

James A Williams