Chocolate for Breakfast
This weekend, I had the most beautiful, wonderful, lovely baby shower! My darling friend, Kelly asked me months ago if she could host it for me. Even then, it took my breath away. Somewhere in a subconscious vector of my mind, I had written in some self-protecting mechanisms. I’d created disclaimers for myself and others to minimise expectations and disappointments.
We live in a foreign country. We’ve only just found our footing in a big city. Some day, when all of our family’s paperwork is sorted, we will visit America and have all the gushy hugs, love and family celebrating we’ve ever dreamt of. We are here to serve others, so it is our joy to give, go out and love without expectation.
I gave Kelly a lot of outs for hosting a baby shower - until I realised I was actually offending her. Finally, I gave in and said thank you. She asked what I wanted, and I said, “No games. Just chocolate. Honest Chocolate.” The back of my mind shouted that there would be no one there, no one to even invite. Our first year+ in Cape Town was cloaked with loneliness and struggle, so I developed the mindset: I’m here for others and should not expect them to be here for me!
But, for Kelly, I sat down and took inventory of women in my life here who I thought wouldn’t hate celebrating with me. There were so many! I think I sent her a list of over 20 ladies. The closer we got to the baby shower date, the more God started to challenge my self-protecting beliefs. New friends kept popping on my radar and asked if they could come to my baby shower. What in the world…
There were even a few nights last week before the shower that my pregnancy insomnia was accompanied by wide-awake, lit-up joy of the Lord. Just before Chris would fall into his nightly coma, I would shout something like, “I’m so amped up with gratitude!” God was showing me that after years of prayers, He is opening up His “Yes” in many areas. Firstly, OUR CHURCH IS STARTING. WITH PEOPLE! (Stay tuned to the Friday Five for more details about that.) Secondly, FRIENDS! GOOD ONES! Neighbour friends and coffee friends and mom friends and friends who ask to come to baby showers. Prayed-in friends. Friends who have been ushered into my life in weight rooms, rugby practices, the neighborhood, and all the comings and goings of daily life. They don’t even know they are God’s perfectly chosen gift in my life.
I felt showered with blessings well before the actual baby shower. I started praying over the guest list, asking God to help me communicate to them the specific gift they have already given me through a relationship with them. I spent hours writing God’s inspired words for them on beautiful cards, which filled me with the indescribable joy God created us to experience when we give thanks. The day before the shower, Lifa and I went to four shops looking for flowers. (Why don’t flower shops have 20 flowers to sell at one time???)
On Saturday morning, I arrived at one of my very favourite places in Cape Town (Honest Chocolate) with an armful of flowers and cards. They were quickly whisked out of my hands and replaced with a real flower crown on my head, a dark hot chocolate in one hand and an Original Truffle in the other. Hello heaven on earth. The beautiful courtyard was FULL of smiling women, decorations, gifts and a sugar-free, flourless, change-your-life chocolate cake.
We didn’t play games, and, instead, we ate and drank chocolate for breakfast. The guests joked that, by me bringing them gifts, I had missed the point of the baby shower. We spent hours talking, laughing, celebrating and opening the cutest little Benjamin gifts. It was the perfect morning. But there was so much more to it than that.
I came home, still vibrating from all the happy and chocolate, thinking about how God loves us. When I took the time to think about the people and blessings He has already brought into my life, I was consumed with His joy and compelled to share it with others. His great release flowed over and out of me, bringing even more into my life and to our chocolate for breakfast party. I couldn’t resist celebrating them, and they celebrated me exponentially above and beyond that. All I had to do was invite them and turn off the self-protecting mechanisms in my mind. There were so many to share chocolate for breakfast with.
The Kingdom of God is like chocolate for breakfast. We fill our hearts and arms with gratitude, and He replaces it with a crown on our heads and a feast in our hands. It’s dessert time, right here and right now in this life. We only need to shut down our own presumptions and give thanks for what we have. The Kingdom of God blesses through multiplication and abundance.
Heaven will never run out of Honest Chocolate.
