Leftovers are great, well sometimes. It really depends on what it is. The day after the night before can turn some bland dishes into masterpieces after bathing in the broth or skin or bed of whatever it was introduced on. I have friends that swear by left overs, and they aren’t the only ones. A whole website has been dedicated to making mystical leftover creations. Nice.
Sometime in early 2000 my Dutch friend Zippora introduced me to the greatest invention that Holland has ever imported, no seriously, ever. Stroopwafel
She give me one to sample, and I was hooked. She became my dealer, and I her addicted customer. Over the course of the years she has flown them across the English Channel, smuggled them across the Atlantic Ocean and shuttled them across England. I have been known to become a little (read extremely) irrational when my supply is depleting. I remember one particular time when my wife asked me to taste them, and it took everything within me to give her one of those golden wafers of sweet chewy goodness.
Oh yeh, left overs. I didn’t know this but a baker in Gouda, Holland had finished baking and he took the left over crumbs of some dish and added spices and filled the mixture with caramel. Et Voila, the Stroopwafel was born! Little did he know that his experiment with left overs would catch fire and became a staple of Dutch confectionery hundreds of years later! Today we find ourselves steeped in a society of excess (it is estimated American’s throw away $43 billion worth of food). We don’t generally have a high view of leftovers. We don’t tend to mend things that break, we equate left overs as unwanted, as mistakes. Such a policy in our lives can cause us to miss out on the surprises that often spring out of leftovers. The second chances.
I am thankful for the second chances that were extended to me so far in my life. Maybe this is the year you will make sweet Stroopwafels from relationships that you once gave up on as leftovers. (Of course some things that are leftovers need to be thrown away and never see the light of day). Spend some time to think about it you might be surprised. We all know how it feels to be forgotten, left over and overlooked, it hurts. If you are currently feeling like you have been tossed onto the scrap heap of life, I want to point you to forceful texts in the bible. GOD, paints a powerful picture of maternal love for us in those times of excruciating expulsion (real or apparent.)
Isaiah 49:15
Today’s New International Version (TNIV)
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
You are NOT forgotten. You are NEVER a Left Over (as good as they can be). In God’s eye’s you are ALWAYS the main course!
andreas | beccai 