What’s in a Name?

I love to cook. Do you? Oh, I do. I love to plan and execute an exquisite gourmet meal. But I also love baking chocolate chip cookies with my kids. I just love to cook. So, when I was trying to come up with a name for this blog, my dear husband reminded me that if I was doing it mostly to help my family keep up with things going on with us, then it needed to be something meaningful to my family. Naturally, being the good Texan Baptists that we are, anything and everything has to do with food.

The title “Cheesecracks and Fruit Salads” is a way for me to poke fun at myself and my family. You see, my family has a way of taking any little mistake or misstep and never letting go of it. You hear about it in one form or another for the rest of your life. For instance, my dear late grandmother, Nana Prewitt, who died this summer tried one time to pass off store bought rolls as her own. We even heard about it at her funeral. That’s the kind of family we are. It’s a little sick if you ask me.

So here are the stories behind the name:

• I was making a cheesecake one time at my sister’s house. Cheesecakes are finicky and they have to be cooked and cooled at just the right temperature. Well, Denise’s oven ran hotter than mine at home and it formed a crack wider than the Grand Canyon. Thus was born the name, “Cheesecrack” (thanks, Dad). Let the record reflect that I have only cracked one other cheesecake since then and that was because I went to sleep and couldn’t baby-sit it as it cooled.
• When we get together for holiday meals, we all bring at least one dish. One year, I told mom I would bring a fruit salad. Well, things at work got crazy and I just didn’t have time to make it to the store to buy the fruit. So, I planned to instead, just buy the fruit at the local grocery store after we got out to their house in Lindale. We got there, and unloaded the car and I told mom I needed to go to the grocery store to get the fruit and she said, “Oh, I’ve got fruit here. You just use that.” So, I did. And now the long standing joke when we’re discussing holiday meals is that, “Donna will make the fruit salad… if you provide the fruit.”
• And the web address… “way more homemade”? Well, there’s a story there also… We were at a dinner at church sitting at a table with several dear friends. Valerie, Andrea and I happened to be discussing different potato dishes that we liked to make. Valerie began to describe what she does and that she uses frozen hash browns and some canned soup or something. Well, I (without consulting the tact part of my brain) decided to say… you guessed it, “Oh, mine is WAY more homemade than that.” Everyone just kind of stopped. “Did that actually just come out of my mouth?” YEP, it sure did!

I recently began to think of how these stories and names can apply to my life. Here’s what I came up with…

Aren't we glad God doesn't keep that kind of record? In Psalm 103:11-12, God tells us, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

In spite of all the cracks I create in life as I am sooo less than perfect… God can still use me. In spite of how I lack in so many areas and feel so unprepared… God can still use me. And in spite of my big huge mouth that seem to always jump in the action when it is least needed… God can still use me.

In spite of myself… God can still use me. I remember this as I pray that he uses this blog.