The Friendship Challenge

Pictured above is Jen, Nicole, and Allison (with me laying behind them, of course).

The friendship challenge is a challenge of whether your friendship will withstand this ten-day process of making bread. How it works is you receive a starter bag of goo on day 1. One might think to oneself, "Hey, this doesn't seem so tough."

On days two to five, you mush the goo and maybe even burp the goo. Once again you might think to yourself, "Alright, this is taking a little bit of a commitment, but so does being friends with Aimee...I think I can handle it."

Now day six is here. You read in the instructions that you are supposed to add 1 cup of flour, sugar, and milk. This seems okay so you go to the frig, pull out the milk, measure it, and pour it in. Next is the flour and sugar. You open the canisters and start measuring and come to find that you only have 3/4 of a cup of flour and a 1/2 cup of sugar. This is where you start questioning your friendship with the person that pawned this challenge off on you. So you get in the car and make an extra trip to the store to buy more flour and sugar. Now you begin to think that on the one hand this might be a little bit more work than you signed on for; but on the other hand, you think that anything in life takes a little work and usually in the end it is well worth it. So you decide to plow forward.

Day seven comes and you read mush the goo. The Hallelujah Chorus is playing over in your head. Day eight comes and goes. Day nine comes and goes. Day ten comes and goes and day eleven the same.

On day twelve, you open the cupboard and realize that you forgot all about your goo; and you throw the bag in the trash. You think, "Crap, all this work for nothing. I am so disappointed in myself." You curse Aimee for conning you into taking this challenge and in essence making you feel bad about yourself. You then call Aimee, your so-called friend who was supposed to call and hold you accountable in the bread-making process, to let her know that you had failed. She picks up her phone; and as you begin to tell her your story and how you failed in your attempts in the bread challenge, she laughs and says there is no need to be in despair. She says take your bag of goo out of the garbage and pick up where you left off. A few extra days of fermenting won't hurt a thing. You go to the garbage only to see that for the first time in your husband's life during marriage he listened to you and took out the garbage. Your heart sinks. You shrug your shoulders and think better luck next time and go about the rest of your day.

The story I just retold is based on some true events but was dramatized for desired effect.

In all actuality, the goo is called friendship bread because it gets passed on from friend to friend like a chain letter. But unlike a pesky chain letter, you can enjoy the end product.

Here I am doing just that. Mmm, mmm, good.

In all seriousness, there are some real life applications that you can take from the experience of making friendship bread in case you couldn't pick them out in the dramatized story from above. In life, you can find yourself in situations or experiences either by your choosing or by the choices made by others. At times, things can be tough; and you doubt if you want to continue in this course. You find yourself questioning things. At this point, you find yourself at a crossroads. You can either turn away/run from this course, or you can stay the course and let these "challenges" burn and refine you to be better than you ever thought was possible. Mistakes happen. That's just life. However, we need to be able to learn from them, not let them define us, and let God do His handy work and transform them into a precious treasure. God is at work in all of us, and He uses life to accomplish His mighty work.