Do
you like good food? If so, you’ll love the fare of southwest Louisiana. In the
heart of Cajun country you’ll find a people with a zest for living matched by
their passion for great eating. With dishes such as gumbo, boudin, and
etouffee, you may be surprised with some of the ingredients but you’ll be
certain to relish the flavors.
The
Cajun’s rich heritage of savory foods grew from a desperate need to survive in
a strange land. Their past is riddled with hardship. In the beginning, they
were French settlers to Acadia, what is today eastern Canada, carving out a new
life in unsettled lands. Later, those that weren’t killed were forcefully
evicted when Britain won the war. Theirs was a long, arduous voyage to French
territory in what is today Louisiana. With scarce supplies, they could rely
only on themselves and what they found in their strange, new land. It is
exactly because of these challenges that they learned how to make use of
everything they found- wasting little- to produce something wonderful.
One
of the most recognizable Cajun dishes is gumbo. It doesn’t require extensive
ingredients- a little flour, some oil, seasoning, whatever meat or seafood is
on hand, water, and time. The ingredients aren’t hard to come by but it does
require skill. You can’t just throw it all together and have it turn out well.
The secret to making a good gumbo is the roux. Traditional roux requires the
right hand, a good eye, and much patience to turn the simple flour and oil
ingredients into a perfect base, one that’s just the right about of dark but
never burnt. It is the heart of the dish. Without it gumbo is, well, just
ordinary, boring soup.
Do
you ever feel that you are lacking? That maybe the failures of your past and
your imperfections limit your value or how you can be used for good? That’s a
lie of the enemy. If a mere Cajun can make such wonderful dishes using simple,
and often less than choice ingredients, just imagine how much more God can do
with you. He doesn’t need you to provide much. In fact, He often uses those who
seem the most imperfect or unqualified to do the greatest work for the Kingdom.
How many of the twelve disciples were suited for the job in human eyes?
All
God needs from you is to give Him all you have- including the parts that seem unfit.
Often it is exactly what you feel is even less than ordinary that He’ll use to
flavor what will become extraordinary.
Message
for the Journey:
You
need not feel ashamed of anything you've given to God. Nothing goes to waste in
His kitchen. He'll take your broken pieces, the junk from your past and mix
them up in a pot of His living water to make something truly wonderful.
-Ann
Wilds
"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good
of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."
(Romans
8:28 NLT)
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