Some of the greatest childhood memories I have are the days I spent at my Aunt Debi’s. My cousins and I would play ball, go to the park, and run up and down the neighborhood getting into all kinds of mischief. It was also nice because everyone knows that Aunt Debi is the cook of the family. Every family has that one who excels above the rest at holiday dinners and desserts and Debi is ours. Cakewalks are the hit of each church festival when people know they have a shot at winning anything Aunt Debi made. If you know her go ahead and get jealous as I inform you that I got to enjoy her cooking every week in the summers growing up. She was always baking up tasty treats for us and we’d line up to help as long as we got to lick the beaters off the mixer. As sweet as she is, Aunt Debi is also a prankster and there’s one trick that got us every time. She’d call one of us in with a spoon full of chocolate from the cake mix and of course we’d grab it and stick it in our mouths only to find out that it wasn’t cake mix at all…it was baker’s chocolate. Cocoa without sugar! Disgusting and extremely bitter! She’d call us in one at a time so that each of us could be in on the trick when the next cousin came in. One after another we’d thank her and grab the spoon, realize that our taste buds weren’t experiencing the delight we’d expected and then we’d try washing out the bitter taste with whatever we could find. She’d laugh and we’d eventually laugh as we watched our cousins go through the same shocking surprise. We’d go back outside and play for a while but would later come back in to find a scrumptious dessert that wasn’t the least bit deceiving.

It’s amazing how that bitter baker’s chocolate becomes a part of something so sweet. But what would happen if we had allowed the bitter taste of the un-sweet ingredient to keep us from the enjoying the finished product? What if we just assumed that no dessert could ever be good if it contains that stuff that put such a bad taste in our mouths? I mean, we didn’t imagine it! It was definitely bitter and nothing can change that experience from “that-was-horrible” to “can-I-please-have-some-more.” It was real. We expected something that didn’t turn out the way we’d expected, which could have left us as bitter as the baker’s chocolate, had we not known the baker. See, we know that Aunt Debi knows what she’s doing. She’s an experienced baker and loves to make things for us to enjoy. We know she has to add all sorts of things together to create each delicious treat to the taste buds. We trust her.
How much more should we trust God. We often come face to face with situations that leave us bitter. Relationships that didn’t work out, arguments, bitter feelings about circumstances and we decide to quit and hold bitterness in our hearts. We figure nothing good could ever come out of anything that involves this or that, him or her. While all the time God’s still in control and he’s working out a sweet thing that comes together when he mixes all the ingredients of our lives. The sweet, the bitter, the broken, the parts that would be horrible by themselves, and the parts that are good alone but are so much better when they’re mixed together, put through the fire, and served.
Don’t let a bitter experience keep you from experiencing what God’s cooking up in your life. The word says he causes everything to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we had hoped or expected. Sometimes we even feel as if we’ve been fooled. But we know God. There’s nothing so bad that he can’t work into the recipe of goodness for you.We know we can trust him. Give him your complete trust today and taste and see that he is good.

Hebrews 12:15
Romans 8:28