I have been trying for the last few weeks to reproduce our family’s homemade spaghetti sauce.  It hasn’t been easy. My first attempt used far too much parsley. My second attempt had way too much sugar. After that I put the recipe aside and went over to my Dad’s house for some hands on instruction. After watching my Dad put it together I brought the pot home to try again. I didn’t slow cook it long enough, though, and it came out watery.

I was about to give up after that, but then I remembered something my Dad had told me. He had said that there were a lot of different ways to make the sauce depending on how you wanted it. I remembered, too, how my Grandma’s and Dad’s homemade sauce was never exactly the same from one meal to the next. Sometimes it was slow cooked with sausages, meatballs, chicken, and potatoes simmering in it all day long. At other times it was cooked in few hours for a quick spaghetti dinner with a can of tomato paste thrown in to thicken it up. No matter how it was cooked, however, it was always made with love and it always tasted delicious.

It may take me a while, but I am going to get that sauce just right for me and my family. It might not be exactly like my Dad’s, but it will be made with love and it will taste delicious.

Maybe that is what God wants for each of us to do with our own lives as well. When it comes to the feast of life we can learn from the greatest chefs in the world, but in the end we all have to make our own sauce and cook our own meal. We are all different, after all. We are all unique. We are all special in our own way. We all bring our own one-of-a-kind ingredients of experience, wisdom, and goodness to the cooking pot. Let’s not be afraid then to create a glorious meal all our own to share with the world. As long as we remember to cook it with love and serve it with joy, God will make sure that it turns out just right.