To Women of God

We have roles given by God
Not less than man but equal
We're meant to be feminine
A mixture of vulnerability and strength
roles not to be disparaged
Mother, daughter, sister, wife
caring and cared for in return

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Chick-chick-chicken and the Role of the Wife

Never having been married, I've never felt the need to develop any talent or skill in the kitchen. My teenage son is a living remnant of my pagan days when I thought marriage was for the birds and was determined to find myself a "househusband" to do the cooking while I brought home the meatless bacon. Apart from very occasional cookies, I prepare vegetarian food on the stove top while my oven gathers dust. My son eats it, never asking why I don't use the oven.

Now that my boyo has reached 16, I've allowed him to eat what he wants. He's chosen to eat chicken, still avoiding red meat. After purchasing some chicken thighs a few weeks back, I called Mom to ask her how to make her yummy fried chicken. From what my son says, it turned out tasty but not as tasty as Grandma's.

A few days ago there was a sale on fresh chickens at the local grocery store. I handed my son my bank card and told him to grab three. Two fit nicely in the freezer and one I slipped onto a plate, still in its packaging, and popped it into the fridge. I'd never cooked a chicken and needed to keep it fresh until I could find out how!

Chicky sat on his plate a good 24 hours. What with the time difference between Sweden, where my son and I reside, and Los Angeles, where Mom lives, I missed the window of time in which I usually call her. Mom can cook anything, but little good that does me if she's asleep or out running around as busy retirees are prone to be.

There was a time in my life when I felt stupid and even humiliated for not knowing things like how to cook a chicken, but years of having my emotions rubbed raw by the informed elite for not knowing much about anything, coupled with a curiosity that would not allow me to remain ignorant in silence, has built up a pretty thick layer of scar tissue. These days, I can admit how little I know and watch as that thickened scar tissue painlessly deflects the barbs of the intelligentsia. (Or the self-righteous. Your call. ;-) I needed to admit to someone who can cook that I'm hopeless in the kitchen and find out how to cook that chick-chick-chicken. Or I could google it, but then you never know what you'll get.

Facebook! My dear friend Levita in Minneapolis can cook and she chats on Facebook. Logging in, I found her there. Without hesitation, I blurted out, "How do you cook a chicken?"

Levita gave me precise instructions on temperature and time. She suggested I stick a meat thermometer in the chicken's thigh to be sure it was the right temp. (A meat thermometer? O.o I can't even cook a chicken!) The Cajun spices she suggested aren't common fare in Sweden, so I figured butter, salt and pepper would work. Works on white fish, so why not on chicken? (When in doubt, use your own brand of logic.)

There's a reason I call my kitchen Amanda's Experimental Kitchen. Apart from dead animals, I eat just about anything - even what's left when my culinary experiments (my cooking, in other words) go awry. (My poor kid gets stuck eating it, too, but silent obedience is his job.) Although I have three or four recipe books, it's rare that I ever dust them off, preferring the taste-and-figure-it-out-as-you-go method. It's not a method without it's flaws - ask my son - but something in me insists if the lady on the cover of the cook book can figure it out, so can I. Ahem. Yes. Well.

Scrounging through my spice cupboards I found loads of different types of curry but figured my son would gag if I used it on the chicken. He's funny that way sometimes. The jar of lime-pepper looked inviting, so I shook a little all over the chicken. Ground ginger is never wrong in my book, so I sprinkled a little of that on next. Then I spotted a packet of lime leaves. The package is bright yellow and caught my eye at the supermarket a few months ago. I brought it home, wondering what you cook with them, then forgot about them. Looking from the chicken to that bright yellow package with the green lime leaves on it and back to the chicken, I got a brainstorm: I microwaved some butter until soft then crushed a few lime leaves into it. After smearing the bird with the lime-leaf butter and wishing I'd had my brainstorm before I'd spiced it, I chopped half an onion and shoved it inside the bird with the remaining butter-lime leaf mixture.

With my hand in the chicken's guts area, it occurred to me that one day God might grant me a God-fearing, God-loving, God-following husband. Not many Christians are vegheads, you know. I stood there, hand-in-chicken, wondering if I could cook meat dishes for a husband. It was then I realized my long-standing aversion to touching dead animals would easily be overcome in the role of the dutiful and loving wife. Yes, I could handle and cook bloody, stinking meat for my husband, rather than see him starve to death. I could even ask his mother for cooking lessons, admitting that I'm a grown woman who doesn't know how to cook, and learn how to make a pot roast just like hers, all to please her son. 

I sliced the rest of the onion and tucked the slices under wings and legs and laid them atop the chickie.

It looked okay to me, but what do I know?

Before covering it with foil and popping it in the oven at the temp Levita recommended, I sliced a piece from an orange and squeezed it all over the bird. That's when my son came in and told me not to over do it. "It should have just the fragrance of orange, Mom, not taste like an orange!"

My son can cook, but has yet to learn that part of love for others and for God, and obedience to God, is doing what you don't want to do to help or even just to please someone else. When he learns that, he'll learn that sacrifice is a pleasing fragrance to God and to others - more pleasing that the fragrance of lime-leaf-ginger-orange chicken. 

2 Cor 2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing [ESV]

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For Success in Marriage...

Pastor John Piper has said, "Success in marriage is not finding the right person, but being the right person in the power of the one perfect Person."

Our prayer here at the Single Ribs Society is that each one of us will, under the power of the Holy Spirit, grow into the right person - a biblical woman and a future biblical wife.

We ask that all who read this blog spend a few moments daily in prayer for all the other Single Ribs, that we might grow into the women and wives God wants us to be. Let's also remember to pray for the Single Rib Donors, that they, our future husbands, will grow into God-honoring, God-pleasing biblical men and husbands.

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