Surprise and passion

I've been challenged lately to be authentic, open and honest. Unfortunately, those things can also bring vulnerability. Now I feel very vulnerable, because I am opening myself up to be judged. Here goes.

 A few weeks ago, my aunt planned a surprise engagement party/girls' night for my cousin Hannah. I volunteered to make the cake. The party was awesome. She was completely surprised! It was so good to spend time with all the women there.

The women from my dad's side of the family, with Hannah double leid. Ha!

So why am I feeling vulnerable? Well, I'm going to share the cake I made.

 

I feel like making a bunch of excuses as to how it didn't come out exactly how I wanted, but I'm not going to. I've felt convicted to pursue what I'm passionate about and have been looking up stuff about determining your passion and I found this:

"When we do what we are passionate about, we have total confidence in our abilities. This makes us not worry about failing, because in our mind, how can we fail when we do what we love? Doing what you love is a success in and of itself, so failure is like an impossibility. Think of something that you just do or want to do, no matter what. Something that you do not have second thoughts about. Think about something that you feel you must do and that failure is not even a concern of yours, because the mere act of doing it is like the journey and the destination all wrapped up in one. This may very well be your true passion." - from here

And that's how I feel about baking. I'm not really afraid to attempt things because even if I totally mess it up (which often happens), I still really enjoy doing it. So in that sense, I never really feels like I'm failing. At the same time, I really enjoy learning about it, how to do it better and where I went wrong. However, I honestly fear being rejected by others or what I've done being rejected. That's a whole other issue that God's addressing in me. 

I think rejection is inevitable, really. I read an article about an interview with John Mark McMillan and I was challenged by this line, "After all, a lack of approval is a common side effect of honesty." And McMillan said “I think people get so concerned with being correct that they end up editing themselves down, but that’s not the way King David did it...That’s not the way they do it in the Bible.... I think He’d really prefer something that’s incorrect and genuine instead of something that’s correct but comes from a robot.” I definitely think God is glorified when we are open and honest about our hearts. 

God has challenged me to be vulnerable, open and honest. Since I wanted to learn more and improve at cake decorating, I'm taking a class on it. For the class I have to make a cake a week, and so I'm going to share how they turn out. Part of this is terrifying me, especially because of how I did at last night's class, but I want to be honest and real. So, a cake a week for 9 weeks. Get ready for a sweet tooth ache.