Cooking is not my forte, not my pleasure, and certainly not anything that interests me even on a long, boring day. After learning the basics when I was first married at 21, I was still burning my food- even the carrots- after 15 plus years. No talent, no skills, no desire. I usually don’t think of food, watch food shows, or have any plans when I buy groceries as to what I will make with them. In fact, I would rather scrub toilets and clean grease traps than cook and that is why people like my hubby amaze me.
He ‘sees’ food in his mind and can make it from that picture. Occasionally he will be at work and design meals in his head, and then knows what to buy, how to make it and how to season it perfectly. In 24 years of marriage in which he has cooked many meals, there have probably been three dishes that were below high quality standards. Also, he can find incredible meals where I can’t even find a thing to make. It is a gift, a talent and a skill.
So you can imagine my impression of one of the Master Chef competitors who is legally blind getting into the top two spots. Christine cooks to perfection, seasoning by feeling and taste, trying things I would never attempt to do with full sight, and makes dishes that look beautiful and taste great. Obviously, she has talents and skills given by our Creator. What impresses me most is that she continues to cook despite her ‘handicap’. I put it that way because even the judges were mentally limiting her abilities while over and over again, she challenged those limits.
Some cultures in humanity’s past have killed their disabled children and many still value the idea of ‘only the strong survive’. But is strength dictated by physical perfection, or by character within? If a man can bench press 800 lbs, but watches a car crush a child while, a 130 lb, 5’2” mom lifts the car off the child, which one is stronger? The point is- we need to stop looking at people with narrow vision. Strength is using the gifts given to the best of our ability for the good of all.
There are: diversities of gifts, differences of administrations, diversities of operations 1Cor. 12:4-6
…for the common good. v.7 ISV
…Spirit produces all these results and gives what he wants to each person. v.11
If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But at this very time God has arranged the parts, every one of them, in the body just as he wanted to. v.17,18
On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable, v.22
Here I am still occasionally ruining food and or making it just edible, while hubby cooks delicious meals, while a blind lady cooks like a professional. Should I get mad at myself for my lack of cooking skills? Sometimes I do, but I quickly try to remember that I can fix and build things while some other people can’t. Should Christine stop cooking because she can’t see, or push beyond such limits to succeed wherever she is able?
We all need to stop looking through narrow glasses at ourselves and others, and just start using the gifts given to us by Almighty God for use here on the earth. Indispensable or non-essential, strong or weak, ‘handicapped’ or ‘perfect’, smart or ‘brainless’, these are just terms subjective to our own opinions and not the God who made us all. God gave us what He wanted each of us to have, and we should trust in Him, not limit ourselves, and encourage others (1Th. 5:11) to use what He has given them.
I know that the LORD is great,
that our Lord is greater than all gods.
The LORD does whatever pleases him…
Ps. 135:5,6 NIV