Perseverance Pie...by Lisa Brittain

My husband's favorite birthday dessert is strawberry pie! I learned this before we were married, and so I asked my future mother-in-law for the recipe. She kindly wrote it out for me.

Enthusiastically, I bought the ingredients and set out to make a wonderful surprise strawberry pie. The end result....strawberry soup in a crust. Well, I guessed I missed a step. I began again only to reach the same result....strawberry soup in a crust!

Greatly disappointed with my perceived inability to follow a recipe, I went back to the grocery and bought all new ingredients, determined to present a beautiful surprise strawberry pie to my fiancé for his birthday! It was his gift after all!!

I diligently read and re-read and measured and re-measured every step of that written recipe to the very end. The result....strawberry soup in a crust! I failed!! 3 failures in the trash...and many tears later...I explained my attempt to create a beautiful strawberry pie.

My fiancé was impressed with my perseverance, touched by my hard work and long-suffering desire to surprise him with his favorite birthday dessert. And then a sheepish grin crept along the corners of his mouth as he said, "You know, maybe my mom left out the secret ingredient to make the pie gel."

Could it be? Yes, indeed, my dear Mom B had left out the one ingredient which determines whether the end result is a strawberry soup or pie! Probably it was a mistake, but no matter, it makes for a really fun story of perseverance.

This is just pie; however, this same persevering spirit has been put to the test and found useful in every significant aspect of my life. Particularly there came a time in our marriage when I had to make a decision to try ONE MORE TIME. Gratefully, God blessed the willing heart, the act of obedience and the perseverance to try again, and He receives all the credit and glory for healing our marriage relationship.

Does persevering through pie making have anything to do with persevering in life? Perhaps more than meets the eye. What I've learned is this: