No Spider Monkeys allowed.

We Honeycutt’s are kitchen people. A sign hangs above my stove which reads, “Kitchens are made to bring families together.” I acquired the sign while pregnant with my first baby, hoping someday my kitchen would be The Place. Our Place, our gathering place. It is a beautiful idea really. Well… in theory at least. I look back fondly at my naïve yet realistically idealistic self who purchased the sign ten years ago. That girl had no idea then what it would mean to have her relatively small kitchen be The Gathering Place for 6 people and a dog.

Pretty sign, lovely sentiment until you consider its literal ramifications.

I would guess during this season of my life approximately 60% of all waking hours are spent predominately in the kitchen. I am a made from scratch kind of cook because I genuinely do love cooking and I (usually) love feeding my people (although not as much as I love feeding myself). Turns out my people love to eat (as much as I do) and happen to love being around me during all my waking hours. (True Fact: The true essence of early motherhood is being constantly surrounded by little people who simply cannot get enough of you.) Since I am always in the kitchen my children, naturally also spend a significant portion of their lives in the kitchen, right alongside me, or under my feet, or in my arms, or on my hip, or on the counter, or lying right in front of the fridge as is the case with my four legged child. 

I’d venture to say, the sign in my kitchen wasn’t so much a prophetic purchase on my part, but rather a global reality penned by a seasoned mother who also had children who loved to eat and loved to be around her and whose sentiments were then marketed to me by TJ Maxx as an affordable, poetic and ironically charming sentiment for our home. Thanks TJ Maxx, it is not your fault I missed the irony. I was young and without children, I had no idea what I was asking for when I first hung your sign.

What I didn’t know when I bought the sign was this: Kitchens LITERALLY bring families together because children are always eating. Always. And since children are always eating, chefs are always in the kitchen and since chefs (usually) are the momma’s… one can bet that children are always nearby. Crawling up her legs, like a spider monkey coated in super glue with opposable thumbs, ya know, just in case she might run away or something.

Sidenote: my husband cooks too. However, never ever, ever does he cook with an entourage of Littles all up in his space. They never seem at all interested in what he is whipping up. What is this????? Children! Can't you see that Daddy too is intriguing as he cooks??? (True Fact #2: Fathers are not nearly as visible as Mothers at least when it comes to the day to day tedium of life. Jen Hatmaker calls this invisibility her husband’s superpower. I wholeheartedly agree.)

Anyhow, if you are lucky, as I am, some of those sticky spider monkey children of yours not only want to be near you at all times but will be supremely interested in what you are doing in the kitchen- from a more, let's say, technical standpoint. In short, they want to help. Oh, yes! All the yessesssssssss!  I adore the idea of kitchen helpers. I really, really do. But it is hard you guys. So hard to do anything productive with spider monkey kitchen helpers. If you cook and you have spider monkeys you know I am preaching to the choir here.

Spider monkey helpers spill, fuss, become inpatient, mis-measure, over stir, get burned. Spider monkey helpers slow the process right down to a screeching halt. In the best, most inconvenient and precious way possible. Oh, sure I can still get done what needs to be done, but the reality is, there is only so much “helping” I can manage before I need to clear the kitchen and get my work done. Alone. I am the chef and the chef needs to have opportunities to do her chef work- spider monkey free. Yes, Cutter my husband and love of my life, this includes you.

My husband likes to shadow me. He finds me so intriguing he too follows me, just watching me as I work. It is endearing, really. But sometimes it feels like he is sort of in my creative space a little too much. You know what I mean? I want him there, but I want him outside my work space. Just yesterday I kicked him out of the kitchen. I said (super nicely, like a Proverbs 31 woman, I promise!), “Husband, I want to have you near, but I need my space while I work, will you sit on the other side of the bar so we can chat?” He did, it was glorious. We got to be together and I got to work. In my own space. Poundsign WINNING.

I wonder if this is how God sometimes feels about me and my efforts. After all He sort of is The Chef and we are absolutely His spider monkey children. He really wants us near and He really wants us working alongside Him but to everything there is a season. Right? If my time in Hawaii has taught me anything, it is this: sometimes we cook, sometimes we prep, sometimes we watch and sometimes we get to try out our own recipe. But we always do best when we follow the direction of The Chef.

A.W. Towzer quoted an unknown 16^th century poet, “He wills thou do but look upon Him and let Him alone.” If I am honest, sometimes my desire to “help” God with His recipes, His work and His realm become my sole focus. Not in a good way, but in a "I know better than you" sort of way. I start trying to dictate His menu. I climb up Him with sticky fingers, not necessarily to draw closer to Him, but rather to demand in His ear what it is I want to eat and how it is I want Him to prepare it. 

In these moments I don’t trust the chef, I want to be the chef. I want to do-do-do the work for God but mostly for myself without much gazing upon The Chef, without much being still and letting Him do His work. Without much trust in his capabilities as Chef.

Four years ago I came to Hawaii like an angry, sticky spider money on the back of The Chef as He was trying to whip up His masterpiece of fine dining. I came to Hawaii screaming into God’s ear. I didn’t want to be here, I wanted His recipe changed. I was certain God had obviously made some horrible mistake in sending us to Hawaii and so I spent almost a full year demanding He let me cook. It was miserable. I was miserable. I made my family miserable. Apparently no matter how good my Chicken Pot Pie, Veg Chili or Three Cheese Spinach Lasagna is, I make an awful Chef of my own life. When I try to take control of the kitchen, I whip up recipes for anger, resentment and whole side dishes of self-pity.

In retrospect I can see what my soul really needed was to move out of the kitchen, sit at the bar top and just look upon Him- content in being in His presence while He cooked. I needed to chat with Him while He chopped. I needed to share my heart with Him while He sauteed. I needed to trust from my bar top vantage point that He wasn’t going to let the dish of my life burn.

Trusting is hard though. Sitting back and letting someone else cook without interference takes focused effort. It is especially hard when I felt certain I knew a better recipe than The Chef. I was recipe focused. Not Chef focused. I focused only on the recipe in the works and the disheveled state of the kitchen and that focus took my eyes off The Chef.  When my eyes come off The Chef it all comes apart.

It was then, when I came to the end of my own cookbook and found I was making a mess of all my recipes I sort of threw in the proverbial hand towel. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I took off the apron I was wearing and stepped out of the kitchen- but I am pretty sure it happened in a flurry of depressive desperation and I am pretty sure I threw my apron in the Chef’s face with a measure of indignant disgust at His apparent lack of concern for my life goals. I am certain though, it was the Holy Spirit who led me out of the kitchen. And I am certain I shamefully hid for a bit before I slunk back up to the bar stool overlooking the kitchen of my life.

Looking back, the funny thing is, I have found my most productive spiritual times here in Hawaii have been the seasons I sat back and let God be God, with the full intention of just wanting to let Him be who He is so I can get to know Him more. Seems the best way to see the recipe unfold is by being still, watching and by simply talking with the chef as he cooks.

While the Chef and I talked I realized, I had been holding desperately tight to a meal plan that was no longer feeding me. Brett Trapp wrote in Blue Babies Pink, we like to feel right even when we are devastatingly wrong. This is beyond true for me. Finding a measure of God’s peace in Hawaii meant scrapping my entire meal plan and letting The Chef concoct all new recipes.

There is a vast difference between the experience of having my kids in the kitchen during dinner rush, as I am trying to fry up the bacon, toast the buns and check the temp of the BBQ chicken in the oven as the husband is watching the clock tick for Cub Scout departure time, because he doesn’t want to rush to be on time and the experience of having them by my side at the counter kneading dough for make your own pizza night. And there is infinitely more difference between the above and having them sit patiently on the other side of the kitchen counter just chatting with me and watching me as I put dinner together in my own way. As it is with God, I've experienced...

Coming to Hawaii was a spiritually frantic time for me. It felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me. My gut response was, “The oven is on fire! Put it out!” So I rushed into the kitchen right during the crucial dinner time hours. My motivations noble, my approach all wrong because it came from a place of fear. There were no fires to extinguish and if there were God was going to put them out. But I couldn't or wouldn't see that.

I have come to believe for me, spiritual maturity, this elusive place I want to grow towards means doing less and less so He will do more and more. Augh, goose bumps as I type! Hear this, please! The craziest part of walking with Jesus is the more I willingly sit outside the kitchen the more The Chef seems to invite me in.

Kitchens are best made to bring families together when it is on the Chef’s terms.

I don’t have this whole let Him cook thing mastered. Far from it. I am still trying to figure out where His holy strength and my effort should intersect. I suspect the Holy Spirit is a key player in this puzzle, but I'm not there yet. And the reality is I may spend the whole of my life trying to pin this one down. I guess I am okay with that. What I have learned for certain though, is the moment I begin to suspect the recipe isn’t coming out like I planned or hoped or dreamed up in my limited brain, I am best to head directly back to the stool overlooking the kitchen and sit for a while. I am best to resist the urge to spider monkey my way to the front of the stove. I know first-hand sticky kitchen spider monkeys start fires, they do NOT extinguish them.  Instead I am best to sit, watch and talk with The Chef first. Waiting patiently, in trust for Him to invite me back in. When the time is right.

   

 David wrote in Psalm 25:4,

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

If I want to learn from The Chef, I need to let Him show me His way, teach me His way, and let Him guide me through the cookbook of my life. This letting Him lead me thing happens best as I sit outside the kitchen and wait on Him. Trusting His recipe.

And all the kitchen spider monkeys say, Amen.

Incidentally a group of Spider Monkeys is called a Troop.
So, during dinner rush, I keep the troops outside the gate.
It is better for us all this way.