Her Note from Ten Years Ago

I choose to believe that where we look for providence, there we will find it.  This has worked pretty well for me over the past three years. I didn’t really understand the whole providence thing until my mom died.   And since then, well….I just know it when I see it, and believe in it when I feel it.  And what a glorious and joyful thing when it occurs. 

Enter…my latest encounter.

It started with my searching for a recipe for the mom’s group that I am involved with.   Every year, at the end of our group's year, we have our “cook off.”   There are about 60 women in this group. Everyone is invited to prepare a “favorite” recipe.    In keeping with tradition, I knew I had to enter one of my Mom’s recipes, as this is what I have done for the past four years.  Last year it was her “Warm Blue Cheese, Bacon and Garlic” dip that helped me win.   So, of course, I needed to find another one of her gems.   I headed straight to her cookbook that she had made many years ago.   In digging through, this is what I found , sent to me in an email that I had printed off and added to her "salad" section:

December 20, 2004

Karen,

I don’t remember if you like cornbread or not, but this is a great salad for a group.  Roseanne (one of my mom’s friends) served it at a shower last week, and everyone raved!  Right after the shower I copied the recipe and emailed it to five people!   You might want to file this one away for future use, in case you ever need to take a salad to a pitch-in.  It is different and very very tasty!

Blessings.

Love,

Mom

(following her note was the recipe for “Southwestern Salad”)

And you see, as a dutiful daughter, I did “file this one away” as she instructed.

And, I did~~10 years later~~ find that I needed something to take “to a pitch-in.”

So I contemplated making this. How much of a risk was it to make something I had never made before? But, there was that note from my Mom, which totally sold the recipe, right?

So, I prepared it….

And I took it…..

And… I did find that everyone found it “very very tasty…”

So much so, that I won!

The way I choose to look at this is really rather simple.  God, in all His great wisdom, knew that some day I would need this recipe.  And He knew that my Mom, in all her love of sharing recipes with me, would be just the person to give it to me.  And....He bestowed on my Mom just the right words to describe this recipe, so that I would be sold on blindly making it for 60+ women, some ten years later!

So, that is that.  Divine providence in all its glory.  Thank you God, and thank you Mom!  I am now $50 richer, thanks to your great foresight!

But more importantly than my winnings, how warm my heart is in having this continued connection with my Mom.

In other news, I am full force into my photography class.  What I can say with certainty is:  the more I know, the more I realize I  don't know.  In addition to learning to be a "student of the light", I had my assignment this week which was to take a portrait of someone.   Who better than Lucy to indulge my current obsession?   Hence, all the photos here in our “photo shoot.”  I am learning lots and respect and admire good photographers that much more.  Lucy has been a real trooper through the process (bribery doesn't hurt either).

Getting a little annoyed with the picture taking at this point.

wink wink

Happy Spring!