My Famous Apple Pie Story – christinelind.com
My famous apple pie story – or how I discovered an ideal life.
“I’ll have a slice of the apple pie,” I said. While other pie eaters happily devoured slices of pie, mingling and chatting away, I ate my tasteless portion in silence and counted the minutes till it was time to go home.
Earlier that morning I had received a phone call from the hostess of this little gala. My husband, Dick, and I signed up to join their Small Group. She asked if I would bring an apple pie to the meeting that night as part of our refreshments. Not knowing how many people signed up, I asked her if one pie was enough and she said it would be plenty. Since my ministry at church had been mainly in the kitchen, I flattered myself on her appreciation of my baking abilities. We were also excited about the Small Group (it was the Eighties and a new concept). Like the early church in Acts, an intimate, small gathering where you could get to know one another and bring your own talents and gifts in a personal way.
I got to work immediately on my pie dough, but soon realized I was experiencing an off day. The crust refused to roll out properly, and after three tries and a wastebasket full of dough, I panicked as only a young wife and mother in her thirties can do. I called my go-to neighbor, Nina, in desperation. “Nina, I have to be at Small Group in two hours and…”
“A what?”
“A small church group,” I explained, “and I’m to bring the dessert, but my pie dough is falling apart.” Nina arrived toting a jar of her own preserved apple pie filling. She rolled out the dough and popped the pie in the oven with time to spare. Must have been my nerves. Calamity diverted. It didn’t matter Nina made it, my reputation was at stake.
I remember riding in the truck alongside Dick with joy in my heart. On our way to our first Small Group meeting with my beautiful pie all dressed up in a Longaberger basket draped with a red checkered cloth. I was the Proverbs 31 woman and proud of it. I looked down at the golden crust, the apple cut-out (my idea) in the middle, and Nina’s homemade preserved apple pie filling oozing out on to the edges into sticky deliciousness.
When we arrived at our destination, we were a bit nervous; after all, this was our first small group meeting. Cars lined both sides of the street. Maybe one of their neighbors was having a party? We made our way to the sprawling rambler-type house nestled under a sprawling oak tree with my apple pie proudly in tow. The door was open and when we walked in we were shocked that it was wall-to-wall standing people. The hostess welcomed us and informed me that the desserts were in the dining room around the corner. My heart fell, and my countenance followed, when I saw two long banquet tables covered with pies. A no-two-alike plethora of pies. I placed my pie at the very end of one of the tables next to a bronzed pumpkin pie with golden leaf cut-outs decorated on top.
I would tell you what happened next, but I don’t remember. But since we were a church group, I assume we had bible study, prayer and fellowship. My memory returns at refreshment time. Our hostess sat all of us at four large round tables with steaming pots of coffee and dessert napkins printed with John 3:16. With a pen and note pad like a waitress in a small diner, she began the task of asking each person’s order on their choice of pie. “Oh, the yummy Boston Cream,” the first pie eater announced reading from the pie menu.
As the hostess sashayed her way to other tables, I heard: cherry, blueberry, coconut and so on. Dick and I were at the farthest table and the last to give our order. When it came to my husband’s turn, he said, “I’ll have a piece of the lemon meringue.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, we’re all out of the lemon meringue.”
“I’ll have that green pie then.”
“Oh, the pistachio—I think we have one piece left,” she said. “I’ve just been told we’re pretty much out of everything but the apple.”
I blurted, “I’ll have a slice of the apple pie.”
I counted the minutes and we were finally dismissed with the doxology.
On the long ride home, the Longaberger basket with its red checkered cloth and pie with one piece missing joggled on my lap. We rode home in silence with Elvis Presley crooning, “There’ll Be Peace in the Valley,” on the radio. Hot tears began to roll down my face. I began to weep aloud, and my clueless husband asked me what in the world was the matter.
“Nobody ate my pie!” I sobbed.
“Nobody ate your pie? Looks like somebody did.”
In real, Lucille Ball fashion, I sobbed louder: “Nobody, ate, my, pie.”
My husband tried to stifle his laugh but burst into uncontrollable glee. “Did you eat it?”
I blew my nose in the red checkered cloth and nodded my head.
Since his laughter is contagious, I couldn’t help but see the irony of it all. My crying turned to giggling, and then full-blown laughter. We laughed together all the way home.
And that’s my famous apple pie story. Over the years I’ve told this story for the amusing and ironic part. But overtime, I learned something priceless. I didn’t learn it that night; I wasn’t ready. I licked my wounds for awhile, but eventually I came to understand they were simply not the recipients of my gift. Nothing wrong with my gift. They were not chosen to receive it. I’ve learned that I have no control over that part. And that God engineers my gift to the ones he chooses. It’s none of my business who receives my gifts and talent.
You may go a long time with your gift before you get any feedback or recognition, consider it all practice. Your gift may change or evolve. God may chastise you (a learning curve) with your talents. Think of me and my story, I had a slice of my own apple pie that night; clearly, the recipient of my own gift as God began a work in my character.
I quote Oswald Chambers: His Utmost for His Highest, “One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.” It is my personal motto and theme for this website. It’s an ideal way to live. An ideal life.
You never know when your gift will be called upon. God can’t use it if you hide it under a lampshade, so let it shine and stand ready. Someone’s life may be of priceless value through his purposes, and who knows—
Yours may be that life.
