Bring Your Mess

Two days ago I was supposed to attend my monthly neighborhood recipe club. I say “supposed to” because as you may have guessed, things didn’t go the way I planned. The theme for this month’s club was all things fruit, and I was quick to sign up for my favorite, fool-proof dessert, lemon bundt cake (a recipe from the domestic goddess herself, Joanna Gaines). I’ve made this recipe many times before and it always turns out well; delightfully light, spongey, tart cake topped with a velvety, sweet, citrus glaze. Bundt cakes are always my favorite because they present so beautifully. This time was to be no exception.

The batter was the perfect consistency. I pulled the cake out of the oven when it was the most precise golden yellow. After allowing it to cool for a bit, I made ready to loosen the cake from the pan and center it on the serving platter. When it didn’t slide gracefully out on the first try, I knew something was wrong. Alas, it dawned on me that I’d forgotten to grease and flour the pan, a critical step when making bundt cakes especially.

I took some deep breaths, found a butter knife, said a prayer, and attempted to gently loosen the cake from the edges of the pan. It was no use. Even after vigorous shaking, the cake only came out in crumbly chunks and pieces. There was no putting it back together. I checked the clock. Thirty minutes until recipe club; no time to try again or change course. Not wanting to show up empty handed, or with a pathetic pile of cake, I resigned to stay home.

Later that day my children came home from school and began emptying their lunchboxes of wrappers and baggies. My son opened the lid to the trash and saw the remains of my lemon bundt cake at the bottom of the bin. “Oh no! Mom, is that your bundt cake?” I sighed.

“Yes, it is. It got stuck in the pan and didn’t turn out well, so I didn’t go to recipe club.” My kids stared at me, nonplussed.

“Why didn’t you just bring the mess?” my daughter said.

“Ya, it still would’ve tasted great, and now nobody had a dessert!” insisted my son.

I explained how embarrassed I would’ve felt showing up with such a disastrous, incomplete looking cake, how all the ladies in recipe club are accomplished home cooks, how I didn’t feel right showing up empty handed when everyone else had something to show for their efforts. I had many excuses for not bringing my mess.

I wonder if this isn’t how we feel coming before God. When our life is put together and things are going just as we planned, picture-perfect even, we waltz right up to His throne and present ourselves without misgivings. We can’t wait to show Him what we’ve done! We thank Him for the beautiful, blessed life He’s given us, the one we’ve worked so hard to curate and steward. We hand Him our love, our praise, and our adoration. We know He’s delighted with us and we look up, ready to receive His gifts and affirmation in return. We look forward to meeting with God when things are going well, much like I was looking forward to recipe club. When I set out to make my lemon bundt cake I imagined the praise, pleasure and affirmation I’d receive from my fellow recipe club goers when I presented them with a magazine-worthy dessert.

But there are times when our life is not so put together, when it all seems to be falling apart before our very eyes and no amount of effort on our part can piece it back together. We feel disappointed and frustrated. We resign ourselves to failure. The idea of presenting ourselves to the Lord has us hiding in shame. We look to our left and our right and think, everyone else is so good at this! How come their lives turned out so well when I put in just as much effort? What would He want with a plate of my crumbs? If I can’t bring Him something beautiful, we think, it’s better not to bring Him anything at all.

Maybe, the crumbled pieces of your life, like my lemon bundt cake, are a result of a single but critical mistake. A choice you made, an oversight, a brief act of rebellion even. Yet that one slip-up had catastrophic consequences, and you’d give anything to turn back the clock and reverse what went wrong. I understand this all too well. I have made some grave errors in my life, many of which created a ripple of consequences I couldn’t stop. But the even bigger mistake I made was keeping the mess I’d made from the Lord. I would quickly scrape the pieces into the trash and carry on as normal. My shame and embarrassment kept me from carrying my crumbs to the cross. If that’s you too today, let me tell you what my precious children told me: just bring the mess.

Hebrew 4:16 reminds us that God is no stranger to suffering, “So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” In other words, bring your mess! Don’t deny yourself the grace and mercy that awaits you at His feet. Psalm 51:17 says God will not turn away a broken spirit. We need not be ashamed. If all we have to bring is brokenness, it’s enough.

For the last few years I’ve asked God to give me a word for the new year, and He’s been faithful to reveal words to me like delight, less, succeed, and rooted. For the year 2025 the word He gave me is complete. There are many ways to apply this word, and the tragedy of my lemon bundt cake is one of them. As I stared at the shattered remains of my cake, this verse came to mind: “God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him,” (2 Samuel 22:21). What a beautiful picture! We may not be able to turn back the clock and undo what we’ve done or what’s been done to us, but when we bring Him our mess, He fixes what’s been broken; He makes us whole again. His forgiveness and mercy wipe out our sin so completely, that it’s as if it never happened.

I ran into a friend from recipe club yesterday. I felt compelled to explain my absence from Wednesday morning. She listened empathetically and assured me I could have come with a broken cake or none at all and all would have been well. “You missed out on such a delicious meal!” she told me. “Next time, just bring your mess.”