Praying for Your Family - 30. Cooking

I know I did specific Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner prayers, but we can often eat those meals without ever having to cook. Cooking is a separate task from sitting down and eating! You can even cook and NOT eat! Therefore, I decided that cooking was another reasonable way to direct our minds back to prayer.

Sometimes cooking can take awhile, and we often cook while managing other tasks in the home. This can make it a little overwhelming for me at times, trying to mentally and physically prepare a meal that has protein, vegetables, and often a grain or starch (quinoa and potatoes are my go-to sides), while making sure the kids are not harming each other or destroying something. The combination of cooking and child-rearing, though common to most people I realize, results in me comparing my cooking abilities to other people and being sadly disappointed. I can't fry things well (chicken, okra, whatever, I can't make the stuff stay on), and my excuse is that it's not healthy anyways, so why spend a ton of time trying to figure out a technique my family doesn't really need?

At the heart of it, when I compare my cooking abilities to others, I fall super short. Cooking becomes even more intimidating to me, because I spend a lot of the time feeling inadequate. This is flat out ridiculous. As long as the food is reasonably healthy, and most of the humans in my house like it relatively well, why should I care that it's not gourmet, Paula Deen and 100% local and organic? This leads me to pray about the issue of comparing myself to others - in all aspects - not just cooking.  If I'm not as pretty as all the people on TV, or as smart as the super moms who manage to work in major medical fields and manage their homes, or as sweet and kind and soft-spoken as my friend down the road, why do I care? It's just one more way my flesh and the devil team up to work against my spirit. I think the opposite of comparing ourselves (when we feel lacking), is instead to find Confidence in exactly who God has created us to be as individuals.

I adored the 31 Day series that Alison Wren did on this specific topic, with lots of guest writers. If "Overcoming the Comparison Trap" is a struggle for you even a little bit, check out her series! Great, relatively short reads that provide a very fresh perspective on 'cultivating authenticity' and more!

Theodore Roosevelt Quote

Instead of Comparing - we need to have Confidence!

Cooking - Confidence Overcoming Comparisons

Dear God,

I'm sorry I compare myself to others when I know you created me to be exactly who you want me to be.  Help me to stop doing this, by being confident in you and your love, and what you are doing in my life.  Remind my husband to not compare himself with others. Help him to find confidence in the abilities you have blessed him with, and not feel lacking.  Give my children confidence in who you created them to be.  Help us as a family to fulfill your purpose for us with confidence, not comparing our family to others.  Help us to put all of our confidence in you, keeping our eyes on you, instead of ourselves.  In Jesus' Name I pray,

Amen. 

This is post thirty in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' and scroll to the bottom, for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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