Hopefully, I'm Rising

Almost five years ago, I was newly unemployed. I had left an amazing job in an unhealthy work environment, and knew that before moving on to my next job, I would have to take some time to heal (I had no idea how long I would be without a job). Being very aware of the things I had gone through, my husband was fully supportive of me taking some time off. He only said that if I wasn’t going to be working, then I had to do something.

So I learned how to bake bread.

It all started one day, a few weeks after leaving my job, when we were at the farmers market. We were about to buy some locally made sandwich bread, and as I looked down at a loaf of honey wheat, I thought, I could make this. I had never touched a recipe involving yeast before, but something inside told me, I could bake bread.

So, like any person in search of how to do something, I googled “homemade wheat bread.” I found a few recipes, and my first attempts, to my delight, weren’t bad. But I had a feeling I could do better. So I kept looking for more and better recipes. Then I came across Peter Reinhart’s name and just knew I wanted one of his books on bread baking. Soon after, my husband bought me The Bread Baker’s Apprentice for my birthday, and I started making at least one new bread a week (focaccia, English muffins, ciabatta, etc.)

A few weeks later, it was Easter and we were invited to our friend’s house. I decided to be brave and make Challah bread to bring with us. But, it didn’t turn out great (let’s just say, I learned an important lesson about yeast), and then, our Easter plans were cancelled. So, with the bread we made some rather dense French toast for our Easter dinner. But my almost flop Challah bread, didn’t deter me. Rather it further inspired me to keep developing as a bread baker.

Over time, I did improve, and a few months later, I decided to try Challah again. During one of the risings for the bread, I remember talking to my mom on the phone. When I told her what I was making, she sounded surprised and impressed:

“Wow, isn’t that really hard?” she asked.

“Actually it isn’t that hard. There’s really more waiting than doing.”

“More waiting than doing,” the words seemed to illuminate something for me as they began to leave my mouth. Even with all my new hobbies, I had been feeling like I was doing a lot of waiting; waiting for God to show me what to do next, where to look for a new job, etc.

What I didn’t realize until that moment, was that maybe my life was like baking bread. With baking, I had thrown a few ingredients together, mixed them into a dough, kneaded it, put it in a bowl, covered it, and waited for the yeast to do its work. After some time, I would shape the dough, let it rise again, and bake it. But before it could be shaped, it needed to rise.

“Maybe,” I thought. “I am in the rising part.”

I had all of the ingredients of passion, talents, lost dreams and unexpected hurt. By leaving my job, it felt as if they all had been kneaded around inside of me. Now, it felt like nothing was happening. But what if more was going on than I could sense? What if God was like the yeast, doing His work in me in places I couldn’t see?

Now, as I alluded to at the beginning, I am still unemployed almost five years later. I have had ministry, mentoring, and creative opportunities appear with each new season, and God has done some amazing healing in my heart. But I still feel like I am waiting for the next phase of my life.

Lately, I have been reminded of my “more waiting that doing” comment, and as I look over the past few years I can see that there was some “rising,” and that there definitely has been a great deal of “shaping” within. I am not sure that the shaping has finished, but recently, it has felt like I am doing a lot of waiting again. God is doing His work. So if you were to ask me today, how I am doing, I think I would say:

“Hopefully, I’m rising.”