Lumps

     Lumps aren't always a bad thing, they may be unappetizing in gravy (although I always tell my family they are chunks of meat) and are terrifying in a breast exam, but it is the lumps of shortening in pie crust that make it flaky and it is the unmixed lumps that keep cornbread and muffins from falling apart.  "Over beating makes things fall apart" seems like a good life motto to me, but there is something to be said for leaving life a little lumpy too. Most parents want their children to have an easier life than they did, but we have seen the disastrous results of parents trying to smooth all obstacles from their child's path.  The children grow up spoiled, unappreciative and unprepared for the demands of an adult world.  God approves of lumps.  He has, in fact, promised them, but only for this life. Heaven is smooth sailing.
     As much as it pains me to say it, I used to envy one of the women in my Bible study.  She came from a wonderful, Christian home, married a wonderful, Christian man who used to surprise her with things like a new car or trip to Hawaii.  They had two wonderful, Christian children. Their teenage son had an outspoken testimony for Christ in public high school.  She had never even lost anyone she was particularly close to.  Her life seemed perfect.  Years later she divorced her husband in the middle of his chemotherapy; I don't know what has become of her.  I know nothing of the circumstances that led to her divorce, but I can't help but wonder if her perfect life left her unprepared for the imperfection that is life.
     Although it is still a mystery to me, the Bible says that Christ was made perfect through suffering and there is an intrinsic value in it for our good.  Suffering is not Satan's tool to disrupt our lives, it is God's tool to perfect us.  I would not have chosen a childhood like mine for myself or my own children, but I can see how it has shaped me into the adult I have become, and how it prepared me to follow Christ who is shaping me into something far more perfect than our human ideas of perfection.  Some of the hardest lumps touch the most helpless, both young and old: lack or loss of health, home, family and independence, but even at our peak, we will never be without lumps in this world. God's recipe for perfection doesn't call for beating us until there are no more lumps. I'm grateful for that. The same lumps that batter us, make us better batter.