Check The Recipe

When you don't get it right, try again.

GRACE

Cathy Jewell Long

4/22/20261 min read

When my kids were growing up, I loved baking for them.
One of my son’s favorites were my peanut butter cookies.

One day, while I was at work, he decided he didn’t want to wait for me to get home

—he was going to make them himself.

About an hour later, my phone rang.

“Mama… these cookies are terrible.”

He swore he followed the recipe exactly. So I had him walk me through it step by step.

That’s when we found the problem…

He didn’t think there was a difference between olive oil and vegetable oil.

(If you’ve ever baked, you already know… those cookies didn’t stand a chance.)

We laugh about it now—but that moment stuck with me.

Because life works the same way.

Sometimes the outcome isn’t what we hoped for.
Not because we didn’t try…
Not even because we ignored the “recipe”…

But because something was off in what we were using to build it.

The good news?

God doesn’t expect you to keep eating a batch that didn’t turn out.

He’s a God of second chances. Of fresh starts. Of new recipes.

You can go back, adjust what isn’t working, and try again—with His guidance this time.

Don’t let one bad batch convince you that you’re a bad baker.

And don’t let past mistakes define your future.

You can start again.

And this time… it can turn out exactly the way it was meant to.

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