Come As You Are

 There are no kids left at home to eat the ugly cupcakes or the broken cookies, so here I sit with a dozen chocolate cupcakes that got stuck to the pan. There's a meal at church tomorrow, and presentation matters, so I frosted and sprinkled the nice ones and packaged them up for the table. Then, I started contemplating the crooked and mangled leftovers. What have I taught my kids by leaving the "less than desirable" behind all of these years? What am I saying to my neighbors? Nothing good.

We like to put on our Sunday faces. We wear clean clothes, and make our best recipes, and nod and smile and paint rosy pictures of our lives for everyone to see. That's not what the world needs, they need us to be real. Church is meant for the crooked and mangled, the less desirable and the ugly.

In light of that, I have used extra buttercream to paste these cakes back together, and I squashed them together on a plate to keep them from falling apart. They will be right up front on the dessert table with everything else. When you see them, let them be a reminder that Jesus wants you to come to church in pieces. The church is the place where all of us can squash close enough together in the pan that we don't fall down.

This deep lesson is brought to you by Buttercream & Sprinkles Ministries (I made that up, don't try to Google the address lol)

"There's hope for the hopeless

And all those who've strayed

Come sit at the table

Come taste the grace

There's rest for the weary

Rest that endures

Earth has no sorrow

That heaven can't cure

So lay down your burdens

Lay down your shame

All who are broken

Lift up your face

Oh wanderer come home

You're not too far

Lay down your hurt lay down your heart

Come as you are

Come as you are"--Come As You Are (Crowder): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjgioXrnEME