Leafing thru my worn copy of The Joy of Cooking cookbook, I came across a recipe from my step mother I had stuffed in there years ago. I seldom even use the printed cookbook anymore; like many people these days I search for recipes online. But there it was, a relic as it were from the distant past, her offering to me for a holiday long ago.

What was intriguing to me, apart from the fact that it’s over 30 years old and written on one of those preformatted recipe cards that you keep in a file box, was what she had written on the back of the card.

After the paragraphs of ingredients and cooking instructions and notes on what baking pans to use, she leaves me these final words. “If you have a microwave oven, butter a piece and warm it for 10 or 15 seconds—delicious!!! at least that is what your Dad claims—I don’t eat such goodies!!

To this day I am still amazed that she thought of a way to make my holidays special, home-made if you will, by sending me something she couldn’t even enjoy. It’s a gift that has only grown better with time.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7