Perfect Pancakes

Perfect Pancakes have always evaded me. I’ve blamed the stove, the pan, the spatula, the mix, and mostly the pancake maker. For some reason, I’ve always thought that making pancakes was always another indicator of good motherhood. I have friends that make a daily stack of flapjacks for their kids and I always thought my Eggos in the toaster took a sad second to their mixing, pouring, and flipping. I’ve avoided pancake mixes in the grocery store, just knowing that I wasn’t going to put myself through another failure faced as I scraped the charred remains of cake from the hot griddle. None were the same size, they were all differing shades of dark brown and tasted like a silicon frisby.

Until one day. One day I came across the show Good Eats on the Food Network. The topic for the show that day: Pancakes. I watched Alton Brown explain simply and succinctly how pancakes are really made….how simple it is to find the perfect temperature, how to only stir the mix for ten seconds regardless of what lumps are left behind and how you absolutely don’t need ANY butter in the pan if you’re using non-stick. Say WHAT? Every step I took in preparing pancakes was wrong. I was uneducated. I was overpreparing every step and creating problems for myself.

I just stumbed upon this show. I didn’t google “Perfect Pancakes” like I usually would for EVERYTHING. I didn’t call a friend. I didn’t consult any cook book. I just let the pancakes beat me. I lived with the fact that I could not make pancakes and took with that the fact that I was less of a Mom. It took a revelation to teach me that I could very well make pancakes. I could blend, pour, flip and serve with the best of them. I even got fancy with some chocolate chips.

Am I a better Mom than I was the day before Good Eats? Are my children better nurtured? Will they get better SAT scores? Will this keep them out of jail? Most importantly, does having a perfect pancake in the morning bring them any closer to the face of God? No….no it doesn’t. So once again, my notions on what makes a good Mom are shattered, and I am healed in another place by an amazing, gracious God that continues to rewrite my own personal dictionary.

Thank you Jesus, for your revelation, for your response, for the reminder of the truth and for the reward that is You. I love you more than perfect pancakes.