Chewy Cranberry Sauce

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  I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
    teach me your decrees.  Psalm 119
I used to think that I made the best cranberry sauce around.  I've made it for almost 30 years and still use the same crystal bowl to serve it in.
I came up with the recipe myself, although there are only so many variations one can do with cranberries...but I like to think this was my original dish.
Every year for Thanksgiving the famous cranberry sauce sits grandly on the table.  It's just the right amount of sweet, tart, spices and texture. You can serve it on biscuits, turkey, or straight from the spoon.
A couple years ago we had company over who had never had my sauce. Proudly I went on how wonderful it was--- how I didn't even need the recipe card any more to make it.  It was all in my head. The old noggin.
The day came and I prepared the sauce --- or so I thought --- by heart.   I put the sauce in the fridge to cool. 
The hour of the meal arrived--- people seated at beautiful table settings, candles lit, roasted turkey on the platter.  I watched as the guests put the cranberry sauce to their lips, expecting great lauds of "delicious!".
There were no words....to my horror I saw looks of confusion ---and......chewing...But this sauce isn't for chewing like bubble gum!  My soul sank. What could have happened????
It seems in my quest to  make this with no instructions that I added twice the gelatin to the pan.  The sauce, meant to be jam-like, was wet cracker-like. It was  dense and thick like a piece of shoe-leather. Instead of spooning it onto the plate it had to be cut and forced with a knife. The flavors were lost by the need to gnaw at the "sauce" like square.  

I was mortified. And angry. And humbled. All at myself.

Here I went on and on bragging on myself.  I created the expectation of "You're gonna love this!" But I left the recipe behind.  I was embarrassed.

I have looked back at that event and realized how clearly I failed --- I thought I didn't need the written word.  I thought I knew it well enough.
I trusted my memory and pride more than my recipe card.

I then realized that this recipe disaster happens in other areas of my life.  Whenever I stop referring to the Word of God, when I think that my memory will get me through, the final product is embarrassing. When I start out a task standing on my own achievement and pride, chances are I will be apologizing for my actions.

We need to read the Bible every day as bread for the moment.  Thinking that "my understanding will be good enough" is to make myself the Master and not the servant.  

I love Psalm 119 as it has over a hundred verses committed to the blessings of  loving God's word.  People don't usually say they "love the law".  We usually recoil at laws.  But David, after God's own heart, loved the law. He referred back to it constantly.  He realized that God's words are living expressions of Who He is --- even the laws which expose our sin. I realized that I needed to visit Psalm 119 again.
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Some people say we all need a dose of "humble pie".  Well I got  my own dose of chewy cranberry sauce. It went down bitter but the lesson learned has helped me grow. Pass the dish!