“I like to cook,” she says.

Her voice shakes slightly, and she looks down at the ground.

Why is it so difficult for her to say those words?

“I like to cook.” she repeats.

“Sometimes I even share recipes on my blog.”

I’ve read those recipes and her stories about the meaningful things that happen when friends gather around her table.

They are stories of warmth and spiritual connection…

Stories of community that I can only pray will happen at my own table.

Yet as she speaks it is clear that the words she’s saying carry a deep meaning for her…

A significance only she understands…

“I was surprised when I discovered I like cooking and making meals, because in my family, food was never important.”

“When I was growing up, my family was busy.  Eating was just something we had to do to accomplish the more important things in life.”

The words are difficult for her to say… because they mean she is breaking away from the family in which she was raised.

She is breaking away from one of their values, one of their traditions…

In that breaking away, she’s being true to the person God created her to be…

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made  Psalm 139:14

But still she is breaking away…

And breaking away is difficult for us all.

It is so easy to listen to the voices around us…

To take comfort in them…

To follow them…

It is so much more difficult to hear the voice of God as He calls us to break away from the world around us and become the person He created…

It is so difficult to remember that we are His…

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10

Yet He waits patiently for us to discover what He already knows…

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11