Opportunity

 Last summer, while making a cake I like to call the Colossus of Gant, for my good friends Scott and Krista (aka Mr. and Mrs. Gant), I realized I had an opportunity.

It takes hours and hours, days and sometimes even weeks to make a wedding cake.  I'm sure I could speed things up if I weren't baking and decorating from the same kitchen that has to produce meals for my family, but that's the only option right now.  So it takes a while.

The Colossus of Gant!

During that time, I am sifting flour with baking powder, beating molted sugar into a whipped frenzy and rolling out gum paste petals en masse.  It's not mentally taxing work.  It's important to pay attention, but the mind wanders...and the mind wanders to the couple who will cut this momentarily beautiful cake and embark upon the marriage journey hand in hand. 

That is a scary and wonderful thing.  That is a prayerful and powerful opportunity.

I feel compelled to pray for the couple receiving my labor.  I have to, because it is so important - for me, so that I don't loose sight of the joy of my work, and for them, because marriages need to be buttressed by the love and support of us all.

I've chosen to participate in the birth of a marriage.  Even if I am a hired hand and not a close friend, I feel the weight of that new, precious thing too, and it deserves nothing less than to enter its first year protected by prayer, saturated in it. 

To my brides this summer, I want you to know that you hired me to do a job, and I will do it with skill and professionalism. 

I will also do it with a celebration of prayer over you, your husband and your marriage. 

Love to you all!  And God bless you!