Every family has their Legendary story–the story that gets told at all the family reunions, dinners, and get-togethers; The story that ends up in conversations, jokes and even a funny video or two.  This story may have even been embellished over the years.  Here is our historical story made famous, at least in our family, by our two little sisters who were 9 and 10 years old.

 

It was July 1, 1992, and I was home on lunch break.  My brother was just getting ready to leave for 2 years to go to Canada on a service mission.  Somehow, we found out that it was Canada day, so I suggested to my little sisters that they make a cake for him.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach them to serve.  They were so excited to surprise him, and they began their quest while I headed off to work.  

 

After some time, I received a phone call at work, which wasn’t an easy task back then because we had no cell phones.  My sisters are on the phone, saying that their cake doesn’t look right.  I told them to start at the top and read me the directions and we will see what they did wrong.  They told me the recipe said to blend the water, oil, and eggs, so they put it in a BLENDER!  I was trying not to laugh as they told me about the “blending” the cake.   It soon became clear that they had forgotten the cake mix, so I told them to add the mix and it would look better.  I got off the phone chuckling to myself and my colleagues about the forgotten cake mix.  

 

 Well, what I didn’t know is that they had already started cooking the cake–well the oil, water, and eggs.  They were really making scrambled eggs and you can guess what happened when they added the cake mix.  The hilarious part was that we actually started eating the cake before we found the pieces of scrambled eggs.  Let's just say it wasn’t quite the culinary dish we were expecting.  This story has served as the center of many good jokes over the years, but as I have thought about this experience it reminds me that the intent was to serve someone. It is really the “Thought that counts.”  We are blessed that my sisters have a great sense of humor and have learned to cook.  Our family has been greatly blessed by their example of service over the years.

Service is about love and showing up whether you have a plate of cookies, or you don’t, or whether you added the mix to the cake, or not.  Let’s serve, it blesses lives.