In celebration of Jeff staying home to work today, I decided I would make this delicious recipe from Pinterest: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes. Looks delicious right!? Banana, oatmeal, chocolate chips. And to top it off, I even made it in the shape of a heart for Valentine’s Day. (Ok, a week or so early, but I just love love!) Confession: I think this was my first time ever making homemade pancakes by myself. In the past it’s always been with a mix, and with other people. But hey, it’s pinterest! You can’t go wrong right!? (Ya right!)
I set the table- mason jars filled with orange juice, forks and napkins. I placed a shortstack of pancakes on both our plates, buttered them liberally, & sprinkled them with powdered sugar. We sat down, Jeff prayed and we dug in. Warm chocolately goodness filled our mouths. Then we both stopped and looked at each other quizically. We tried our hardest to finish our bites as we chewed for what seemed like a few minutes.
“Um, babe. Are these cooked all the way? They taste a little doughy.”
“Ya, they taste funny.”
“Is it the banana? Or oatmeal?”
Jeff tore apart one of the perfectly heart shaped pancakes trying to dissect what was wrong.
Then I just started to giggle. And giggle some more.
Yep. These pancakes were not cooked fully. It wasn’t the banana or oatmeal, although I’d sure love to think so. No, I simply hadn’t cooked them long enough and couldn’t recook them now that they were bathing in pools of syrup.
My first homemade sweetheart breakfast gone awry. Jeff tried his darndest to eat some of it, but couldn’t quite manage to stomach it.
“Babe. It’s wonderful. Make it again. It’s so good. Just needs some more cooking. It’s so great though. Yum. Ya. So good.”
My sweet husband.
I simply sat at the table smiling, thanking the Lord for life. Unexpected moments. Moments that you plan to be perfect, and they aren’t—but it makes it that much better. I’ll always remember the morning I tried to have this awesome breakfast, but it was just doughy goo and we laughed our way through it.
I’m thankful for my husband who encouraged me and thanked me for making it.
And I’m so very thankful at how the Lord has grown me in the few months we’ve been married. If this had happened a couple of months ago, I would have broken down crying because it wasn’t perfect. But God is doing something so sweet in my heart—He’s refining me and pruning me of my perfectionism—my desire to do everything perfectly, and when I don’t, falling apart because that’s what I put my identity in—performance. God’s working in me. Changing me. Teaching me that I am His, not what I do, or fail to do. And because of that, I have freedom to grow. Freedom to make mistakes and learn. Freedom to serve doughy pancakes to my husband, and point him to the cereal cabinet! I know that one day I’ll be able to serve my family hearty pancakes, but it takes time; it takes time to learn those skills. And I’m ok with that. I’m thankful for this learning time. I’m thankful for doughy, heart shaped pancakes.
(I did manage to eat all of—I think it was the chocolate. Choc-aholic anyone!? Also, the recipe really is great! Just needs to cook properly.)
Loved this! It made my heart smile 🙂 Thanks for sharing! I was truly blessed by this in so many different ways
Reminds me of making a recipe and using whole cloves instead of ground- not edible!!
Aw This was such a wonderful story. 🙂 I loved how Jeff suports you. 🙂 Especially when the heart pancakes were a fail. Hey, You wouldn’t happen to have the recipe for those would you.??!! This would definitely be great to make for the weekend before Valentines day.
What a sweet story…I remember my pumpkin cheesecake fail, along with the prune dessert fail. At least yours was chocolate! Can’t go too wrong with that. 🙂
Alyssa, I can relate to this in so many ways. I am also a newlywed (one month!) and am learning (or wanting to learn) from my failures and shortcomings daily. I tried to make brownie pancakes last week before church and they burned almost instantaneously…thank goodness for oatmeal, right? And praise the Lord for His grace and His goodness, and for giving our husbands plenty of it too.
Such a sweet story! Good for you for not getting upset at the fail – I tend to feel quite disappointed in those moments
“He’s refining me and pruning me of my perfectionism—my desire to do everything perfectly, and when I don’t, falling apart because that’s what I put my identity in—performance.”
I can identify myself with this part so much, what a blessing to know that God is working in that part of your life, I know how hard it can be and how good it feels to see that you reacted differently to something that just a while back would’ve brought you down.
Blessings!
Awe, I love this story! Thanks for sharing 🙂 You are so right! when we allow God to change us- our frantic, must be perfect, emotional women tendencies, he gives us so much freedom–that’s where I’m at too! Reminds me of a story my sister told me. She had just gotten married and some of her in-laws from out of town where coming for a visit. She wasn’t much of a cook at that point, she just couldn’t seem to get it yet. So when she learned the out-of-towners would be staying with her and her new husband, she panicked! Thankfully, she remembered a recipe her and I once did years back together for a green chile quiche she thought she could pull off so she went shopping for the ingredients, feeling a sense of relief and excitement that, ‘yay!’ she was going to be able to feed them and impress them. Long story short, minutes before they are about to arrive the day of, she pulls the prepared quiches out of the oven and attempts to cut into one of them to make sure it is cooked and to her dismay, realized she forgot to take the plastic pie liners out of the frozen pie crusts before she filled them with the egg mixture, and now they were inedible green chile plastic quiches! I think the end result was, she was able to scrape out the cooked egg mixture, throw the pie crusts with the plastic liner away and use it to fill some tortillas with the egg mix and make burritos. Good save! Not what she intended but, not a total loss! lol. You are not alone!
Aw this is such a great story. You guys really glorify God in your relationship and Alyssa I’m particularly inspired by how much you love the Lord and bring him into the little moments. Beautiful :). God bless you.
<3 🙂
It’s amazing how you put God in the middle of everything and how sensitive you’re to listening to him and taking great lessons about it! I loved the story, it made me laugh! Blessings Alyssa!