May's WOW, Tasty Words!

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Tasty Words
Colossians 4:6
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power! I can’t believe we are already close to summer! May’s halfway gone so I thought this would be a good time as any to get to our May’s WOW (Words of Wisdom & Weapons of Warfare)! Grab your coffee and your red Strand of Faith and follow me to the kitchen.
Since we’ve been talking about communication, I thought this verse was incredibly relevant for us and to us.
Have you ever made popcorn and then thrown in some chocolate chips, or some M&Ms? For some of you, that may be old news but it hasn’t been that long ago when someone told me to try that combination for the first time. I looked at them as though they were crazy. But when I actually tried it, oh, my goodness! It was like my taste buds burst with gladness over the combination of salty and sweet! But the balance has to be just right in order to achieve that taste-bud explosion that feels so good all the way down to the tummy.
I don’t know about you, but for me, texture is another important factor, though, so it’s not like I can just combine anything salty and anything sweet and experience that same ah-ha sensation. For instance, French fries and milkshakes doesn’t do it for me; in fact, I cringe when I think about that combination. Apple pie and cheese sort of makes my tummy queasy, though I can munch on a bite of apple and chase it with a piece of string cheese and enjoy it. It’s just not the same type of taste-bud explosion as the chocolate and popcorn combo!
As we get older, we are told to stay away from the salt – I can almost hear myself saying it in that ominous tone while holding my fingers in the shape of an X indicating the danger! But don’t you just love salt on cantaloupe, or honey dew melon. Again, the first time I tried that combination, I was shocked at the result: the salt made the fruit sweeter! And despite the warning about salt, I find the older I get, the more I crave both salt and sugar!
Well, the more I read the Scriptures, the more I crave, and the more I realize just how much He loves us, and how He gets us, every little thing about us: From our pet peeves, to and through our flaws, in our physical and emotional desires, and to our spiritual needs, He is there to meet us right where we are, and He even uses food to teach us!
The other day, I had opened a new jar of almond butter from Costco. Now, I replaced peanut butter with almond butter over a year ago and am still acquiring a taste for it, at least this brand. Well, in my half-asleep self, I had a brilliant idea: I bet it would be awesome if I added some salt to it! So, I grabbed my Morton’s Sea Salt, and let her rip … and a nice little heap came out.
My eyes got big, like I finally woke up, and I thought, I wonder if it’s too much? I must have sat there, stupefied for at least 30 seconds and then I moved into action. I grabbed the wooden spoon and began stirring … ever so slowly because if you have ever bought almond butter, you know that the worse thing about it is the oil does not cooperate! You have to stir it up and mix all that natural oil that stays at the top ever so slowly but firmly or else it oozes up and out everywhere. So I stirred and stirred… I considered that my arm workout for the day, and then satisfied I had mixed all the salt…. and oil, I cleaned up my mess, made my almond butter rice cake, grabbed my coffee and off to my Coffee Hour with God I went.
When I took my first bite, I wondered: Did I not stir it up right or is it just too salty? A thought fluttered across my mind, dancing like a star and I realized, we actually can be too salty in our speech, say too much and turn others away. So while salt is necessary for flavor, too much is not a good thing! It was a reminder for me in two different ministry situations that while salt is incredibly important to season my speech with grace, I need to go easy… and not dump a whole lot at once!
Join me tomorrow for some tasty words!

Evinda