What does your "cookbook" look like?

My Betty Crocker cookbook is a wreck. It was given to me as a bridal shower gift in 1979, and I have treasured it ever since. Over forty years later, it remains a prized possession. It has been my cooking guidebook, truly important when you’ve grown up feasting on a mainly southern Italian diet, (no complaints here) which included a lot of pasta and meatballs. Yes, our meals had variety, but gravy was simmering at my house just about every other day.

The traditional, and now collectable Betty Crocker cookbook became my best friend in the kitchen. Today, it has all the signs of being used and maybe a little abused. The pages are weathered, written on, and stained. The covers are loose, no longer held in place by the familiar spiral binding. The only thing keeping it together is an oversized, stretchy band.

I’ve collected other cookbooks over the years, but this one has been my go-to manual. In it, I discovered new recipes, tried making things I had never heard of, and was thrilled to find a diagram showing me how to properly set a table. I still refer to that diagram!

Newly married and on my own, I would study the recipes hoping to create them successfully. Some turned out perfectly, and others were sad failures (operator error). No matter though, because I trusted and treasured my cookbook, and still do.

Betty helped me. She helped me learn new things. I learned new ways of preparing food and that was important to me because I married someone raised on a completely different, ethnic diet. So, it was a great way for me to form my own way of preparing a meal. I expanded my cooking repertoire thanks to Betty.

I also have another book that I treasure, and that is my Bible. The question that recently arose in my heart, though, is does my Bible look like my cookbook? I can’t say that it does. My Bible is worn, yes, but not the way my cookbook is.

My first Bible was given to me as a wedding gift. It was put away and out of sight in my nightstand for years. I only took it out because there was an envelope inside its pages with the words “emergency money” written on it. There was a twenty dollar bill in that envelope. One day, I needed the Bible. Actually, I only needed the twenty dollars in the envelope, not the Bible.

I didn’t realize it then, but that Bible contained riches that exceeded the value of the twenty dollar bill contained in the envelope. It took me a while to realize this truth, but I am glad I did.

I discovered that my Bible was and is a book that held riches that could not be counted the way we count or value money or possessions. Its pages hold hundreds of “recipes.” Recipes that tell me how to live my life, a perfect “cookbook.”

But it’s more than that. The Bible is a love letter from God.

From cover to cover, it is filled with God’s words about who he is and who I am. Over the years, I’ve learned. I’ve learned the many ways God values me. I’ve learned how to live and how to love. And his message is the same for you as well.

And so, I have been prompted, more so these days, to get into a rhythm, a practice if you will, to read his love letter. To study God’s “recipes” so that they become my go-to place for encouragement and truth about who I am and how I am to live my life. I don’t do it perfectly, but the good news is that God’s love letter never changes. Even when I mess up one of his “recipes,” it doesn’t change how he sees me. It doesn’t change how I view the words in the book either. Each word remains true every single day for me. And for you.

I know my Betty Crocker cookbook is just a book about food. Food, in many ways, is a love language. Isn’t that what we say? And so are the words of the Bible. A love language that will always feed my heart, and its recipes will never fail.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet  and a light to my path. 

Psalm 119:103-105

My first Bible that had the emergency money envelope inside!