My First Cake

I was ten years old when I baked my first cake. I had Mom's permission and recipe so I was all set. She asked me if I needed any help and I told her that I would be fine on my own. She told me to read the recipe carefully and follow the instructions. I was excited to be so grown up that I could bake unattended. So Mom stayed in the living room while I baked.


I carefully read the list of ingredients and got everything out onto the counter. I greased my pan and preheated the oven. Then I started assembling the ingredients into a mixing bowl. When it came to the baking powder although it said 2 teaspoons my eyes must have skipped because I thought for sure it said 2 cups! I can remember thinking how silly it was that the company made such small cans of baking powder if you needed a whole can for just one cake. But that's what I thought the recipe said so I emptied out the whole can and stirred it all up and poured it into my cake pan.


Needless to say my cake was a disaster! It began to rise and eventually poured out over the sides of the cake pan.  Mom helped me clean the mess up and encouraged me to try baking again. I'm so glad she didn't scold me or ban me from the kitchen. Instead she chose to encourage me to keep trying. Because of her encouragement I can now bake a good cake and I learned from my mistakes. I wasn't crushed with her criticism but rather I was built up to keep on trying, and I did.


We can all learn a lesson from my cake baking failure. We will all fail at something at one time or another but we can't give up, we have to keep on trying. When we see a young Christian fail, instead of criticizing them we need to help pick them up and encourage them to keep on trying. I have heard it said that 'it's not how many times you fall that matters, it's how many times you get back up' and that is so true.


We have a race to run called the Christian walk and we will fall during that race. There will be times when we get off track, times that we are weary, times that we are lost. But what matters is that we stay in the race; that we keep on trying; we keep on running because if we do we will finish the race a victor. If I had given up trying to bake a cake when I was ten years old, I would never had learned to bake. If I give up my faith when the going gets rough, I will never spend eternity with God. I will never finish my race as a winner. Keep on trying. Keep on doing what you know to do is right. Keep your eyes on the goal. God bless.


“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,"

(Hebrews 12:1)