Good morning…
My husband and I are midwesterners who were both raised in “meat and potatoes” families. Though we have shifted toward fruits and veggies, salads and quinoa, fish and chicken, we still enjoy potatoes at many of our meals. Mashed or diced, sweet or russet, baked or boiled, potatoes appear on our dinner table regularly. As the primary cook of the household (except for meals on the Big Green Egg), I have probably peeled millions of potatoes in my nearly thirty years as a wife and a mother. My husband has likely peeled less than one hundred of those dirty, brown fellows.
This week when I was crunched for time, I asked my husband to peel and cut potatoes to boil then mash. I quietly noticed an interesting phenomenon. His peeling and chopping skills were awkward and time-consuming, not because he lacks hand-eye coordination, just because he has not practiced his potato peeling and cutting skills.
We get good at what we practice. We have always told our kids this truth, when they take up an instrument or begin a new sport. My husband is simply not practiced at preparing potatoes. My quirky mind drifts to this question, “If I get good at what I practice, how much do I practice walking and talking with God every day?”
In his book The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence talks of establishing a conversational relationship with God. “That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done.” As we practice conversing with our Creator day by day, even peeling potatoes can become a form of prayer.
…be unceasing and persistent in prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17, AMP),
…Sue…
