Gravy, Grace and Love

When I married and moved to North Carolina, I was introduced to an entirely new food...Moravian Chicken Pie.  To that point, I had only know Chicken Pot Pie.  You know that one, right?  It has chicken, basic soup veggies, chicken gravy and a pastry topping.  The Moravian Pie is different in that it is a pie pastry filled to the brim with cooked chicken (usually the white meat), bathed in very simple thickened chicken stock, seasoned with only salt and pepper and topped with another pastry.  Sounds very simple doesn't it? But it is one of the best "comfort foods" around!  .....I just have to stop here and thank the Moravians.  Thank you.

Every November or so, Moravian churches in the area have church bazaars, and one of the most sought after items is the pre-assembled, frozen chicken pie.  It's a wonderful meal to come home to! You simply pop the frozen pie in the oven and side it with a beautiful salad. My girlfriend and I, realizing that it couldn't be rocket science, determined to make our own. The first year, we made fourteen pies.  We bought enormous amounts of chicken and determined to make as many as the chicken afforded.  Fourteen was the golden number. The one problem was that it lacked seasoning a bit.  That was fine.  Each person could control the amount of salt and pepper once they had a slice on their plate.

Year two came around, and we did it again...only this time, we added too much salt.  Maybe it was something akin to rocket science, after all!  We even attempted to make the pies in smaller batches so we could get it right.  So....that year, we had to make a nearly flavorless gravy to pour over the top.  It worked in the sense that the pies were rendered edible.  The only problem?  We had fifteen or so pies to contend with...all too salty.  Mind you, this is not an inexpensive task when done in such a quantity!  We couldn't just throw them out and start over, so we determined to eat the pies through the year, making that yucky gravy to cut the salt.  It was our consequence for altering the recipe!

You know, people make that sort of mistake in their lives all the time.  They make decisions in mere seconds that have lasting effects for years.  Unfortunately, there are no rewind buttons on life.  I wish there were.  I know precious people who have done foolish things, only to live regretting those life-altering moments.  I met a lady in South Africa who was talking to the people in her car, and she let her attention wander for just a moment. In that tiny instant, she struck and killed a little girl walking on the side of the road.  The lady's life is changed.  I know a girl who drove a car for a guy while he ran into a "friends" house.  The guy was actually robbing a home.  The girl's life was strongly impacted.  I know a couple where one of them, in a moment of intense temptation, gave in to adulterous thoughts and actions.  The lives of an entire family were forever changed. 

But there is good news.  There is a "gravy" that covers the powerful flavor of our sinful lives.  1 Peter 4:8 tells us to "love deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." This kind of love is the love that comes only from the heart of God.  We don't have sin-covering love in our own hearts without the grace that God offers.  But when we know Jesus and walk in the will of the Father, we have the ability to cover and be covered.  It's a blessed thought, isn't it?

Another way to illustrate it is this:  When we were growing up deep in the South, we saw many yards that were filled with crazy things....old cars, rusted buckets, rotten hoses, trash beyond belief...yes, even toilet seats, bathtubs...you name it!  People kept anything in their yards rather than trot it on down to the dump!  The yards were an eyesore. (You've seen these places yourself, no doubt?)  One year, when I was about 10, we had the first snow I had ever laid eyes on.  We children were so excited!  We played outside until the last bit of sludge was gone.  But one of the vivid memories of that snow was when we drove around and looked at our city through snow-covered glasses. Those yards that were previously so unkempt were beautiful!  It was as if Heaven had taken that mess and turned it into sparkling, wintry ice sculptures!  It was spectacular!

God's love does exactly that.  He can take the destructive choices that we make and the mess of our lives and cover them with His love in such a way that we are beautiful!  He doesn't just mask our ugliness; instead, He uses those fateful moments in our lives and creates wonderful landmarks of His grace.  These are monuments that can be used to point people towards Him, if we will let Him work through us.  We can use the mistakes of our lives to show others the unimaginable glory of His Divine Grace.

Oh, what a Savior!  I am grateful now for every "ice sculpture" in my life, and I will use every one of them to point others to the throne of God's grace.  As for salty chicken pies?  My friend and I decided to stand in line at the Moravian bazaar the following November.  It's so much nicer to have someone else cook for us, anyway!

Favorite Chicken Pie Restaurant:  If you live anywhere in the vicinity of a Moravian church, stand in line at the bazaar and buy four or five pies...you'll enjoy them.  If you live anywhere near Wilson, NC, you need to drop in at the Sugar Plum Shoppe and pick up a couple to take home.  While you're in there, get a fudgy nut bar and a dream bar, too!  Oh, joy!