Recently, I made a cake for my daughter Jessica’s 4th birthday. She wanted a Sesame Street cake like Lindsey had had two years ago when she turned four. The cake was fun and easy to make, so I gladly made another one and stacked the layers on top of each other. Then I got ready to frost it.
I hadn’t frozen the layers before frosting; nor had I planned to add a crumb coat, as I often do. I knew that most of the frosting would be covered by decorations anyway, so I simply began frosting the three layers—blue on bottom, then yellow, then red.
Because I hadn’t taken the time to do something about the crumbs from the cut edges of the layers, the frosting was looking…well, pretty “crumby” (crummy, too). And a portion of one of the layers tried to fall off, causing me to fight with it for a minute or two while I tried to glue it back onto the rest of the cake with frosting.
I was about to cry (being hormonal and 36 weeks pregnant didn’t help matters) when Jessica ran into the room to see how I was doing. I heard her intake of breath, then, “It’s beautiful!” Before I could respond, she ran off to find her siblings, saying, “Come look at my beautiful cake!”
Hmph, I thought, shrugging and looking at the cake again. If she thinks it’s beautiful, it must not be that bad.
I guess whether or not a cake is beautiful all depends on what you are looking for in a cake. If you’re looking at the cake as it is, it may or may not be beautiful at the moment. But if what you see is what your cake is on the way to being—in other words, the finished product—then it probably does look beautiful. Jessica saw her cake was beautiful because it was tall and colorful, and because she knew it would turn out to be exactly what she wanted. That was enough for her.
Too bad it’s not enough for us sometimes when we look at ourselves. As women and as moms, it’s particularly easy for us to look at ourselves and see nothing but the imperfections. We know what we’d like ourselves to be, but we don’t trust the Maker that that’s possible.
What if we saw ourselves the way God sees us? What if we trusted Him to make perfect beauty from what looks imperfect now?
God knows that even though we’re not there yet, we’re at least on the way to being what He wants us to be. He sees the finished product He’s in the process of bringing to completion, not the imperfect intermediate one. He sees the beauty of the work He’s put into us, not the blemishes of the ways we’ve messed up. Sure, He knows we’re not perfect—but He also knows that one day, we will be, because of what He’s done in us.
One day we will be sinless. One day we will get things right—all the time. One day, we’ll be what we’ve always dreamed of being—glorified and beautiful, though physical beauty won’t hold the same importance for us anymore.
If only we could begin seeing ourselves differently right now—on the way to becoming, rather than messed up or imperfect. I wonder how we might treat ourselves differently as well as those around us. You see, they’re in the process of becoming, too. Maybe if we realized that we’re all still in process, we’d be able to give ourselves and others a little more grace. Maybe even a lot more. And maybe instead of reacting negatively to our imperfections, we could rejoice at God’s creative work in us as He gradually shapes us into the perfection He has is mind for us to be one day.
The crumby cake is not what we ultimately are. It’s not our final identity. It’s merely a stage on the way to becoming the beautiful cake God envisions—and it may even be beautiful at the moment. And just like God did for me that day, He may sometimes send us a little reminder—maybe even in the form of a delighted four-year-old excited about even the in-between stages.
1 John 3:2—Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.