December 17, 2023
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Luke 1:46-55
She was making gingerbread cookies for the first time in her life – she wasn’t very old – and she was all excited about it. Her older brother had learned to make gingerbread cookies a few years before, and he’d got rather good at it.
This was her very first time.
She thought it was going pretty well, even if there sometimes seemed to be more flour on the counter than in the bowl. She might have miscounted the amount of ginger, too. She decided she’d better add some more to make sure there was enough. Yes. Just a little more. And a little more.
When she was cutting out the shapes – there were cookie cutters for people shapes, and for star shapes, and for reindeer shapes, and even for Christmas Tree shapes – she got things a little scrunchy. In transferring the cut-out cookies to the trays for baking, things got more disarranged. One poor gingerbread person lost their leg, and she tried to mash it back together.
Her older brother came by about this point and decided to make fun of her more oddly-shaped cookies. The two discussed it calmly and reasonably – well, no. The two of them were yelling by the time the cookies came out of the oven. Which might be why there were a little overdone.
She burst into tears.
Mother gathered her into her arms as she said, “They’re not perfect! They were supposed to be perfect!”
Indeed, they weren’t perfect. Some of the trees looked like they’d been through a windstorm. The mashed-together leg had come off in the baking. At least two of the stars had very bent points.
And, it had to be said, they were a little too brown. Not burnt, quite, but any longer in the oven and burnt they’d have been.
“They’re not perfect for Christmas!”
Mother, who thought about things like this, said, “Do you think Christmas is about being perfect?”
The girl said, “Isn’t it supposed to be?”
Mother told her that Jesus didn’t come into the world because it was perfect. It was full of people doing unkind, even cruel things to one another. Jesus came to show a better way, and help people find and live a better life here on earth and beyond. Jesus came to love the ones who didn’t think they were loveable.
“But my brother’s Christmas cookies are perfect.”
Brother, who was feeling sorry he’d picked on his sister, told her that they certainly hadn’t been perfect the first time. “I really burnt the first batch,” he said. “And the second batch wasn’t much better.”
“Let’s see how yours are,” said mother, and all three of them took a bite. She had, in fact, put in far too much ginger.
“I don’t think these are very good, Mommy,” she said, but she wasn’t crying.
“Not so good,” Mother agreed. “Shall we try again?”
In the meantime, her older brother reached for a second cookie. Mother and sister looked at him.
“I like lots of ginger,” he said. “Can I have the recipe?”
Imperfect we may be, but there’s love for us, too.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
When I tell these stories, I tell them from what I remember of the story I’ve written. And… I make new things up as we go through. There will always be a difference between what I’ve prepared and what people hear.
The image of gingerbread people cookies is by ParentingPatch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24263325.
ordainedgeek 
And so I come each Monday morning, which is so much earlier than yours and cry.
I humbly accept your gracious gift of tears, Maren.