Mar
6
2017
The Cookie Tin
Posted in Daily Living 4 Comments
It caught my eye as I was leaving the row of shops.
My oldest daughter was just a toddler.
She carried a teddy bear around with her everywhere.
It was the teddy bear that people confused with a stuffed monkey because it had long arms.
My daughter liked everything that had teddy bears on it.
So when I saw it, I knew I had to stop and look.
There it was sitting on a high shelf in a country store.
I wasn’t even sure it was for sale; I thought perhaps it was on the shelf for decoration.
I lingered at the counter until the salesperson was finished with another customer.
I was wondering if that is for sale, I asked pointing to the object above her head.
She got the large tin down from the shelf.
It caught my eye from the store window but it was even cuter as it was in front of me.
I opened up the tin and saw that it was just the right size.
However, it was the outside of the tin that sold me.
There were twelve teddy bears around the circumference of the tin.
Each bear was hugging the other.
At the bottom of the tin were the words: THIS BEARS MY HUG TO YOU.
I was sold.
I paid the cashier and put the tin on top of the stroller as I walked to my car.
I knew my little daughter would love to see the bears all around the tin.
Little did I know how much that tin would be a part of our family.
Little did I know what it would come to mean to my children.
It was used for one purpose only.
It was the tin that held my homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Every time they came home from school and saw the tin on the counter, they knew.
Without even sniffing the aroma of chocolate chip cookie goodness, they knew.
The tin tended to be in the same spot on the counter.
I would notice their heads turning towards that spot to see if the tin was there.
Even as they got older and went off to college, it was the same.
They would walk into the kitchen and exclaim, Mom’s cookies!
Four dozen cookies would be in that tin at any given time.
Layers of cookies were separated by a sheet of wax paper so they wouldn’t stick together.
I would be upstairs and hear the lid of the tin being removed.
I would hear the rustle of wax paper.
They never ate the cookies from the top down, respecting the layers.
They would move the wax paper to eat the gooiest cookie they could find.
It was when I went to a barn sale that I saw it.
There it was, another teddy bear tin.
This one had no dents in it.
This one was brand new.
I decided to buy it.
I could give it to one of my daughters so the tradition could be kept alive.
I could even keep the tin so that we would have a spare.
I remember when I brought that second tin home.
I thought there would be excitement over the find.
I thought they would share my enthusiasm.
I thought there would be discussions as to who would want to keep the tin.
I was wrong.
Why did you buy that?
We already have a chocolate chip cookie tin.
It’s not the same.
Ours is much better.
I was confused.
I needed clarification.
It is exactly the same tin, I remarked.
No, it’s not, one of them informed me, our tin is used.
Used? I asked needing to hear more.
Our tin is worn and dented and it’s not the same yellow any more, my children told me.
That’s the tin we used when we were little, Mom.
The other one doesn’t have the history.
There is was.
They wanted the tin that they opened over and over.
They wanted the lid that they dropped too many times to count.
They wanted the yellow color which faded from ten little hands touching it far too much.
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
(Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit)
Our faded, dented tin was not ugly to my children.
It was real; it was loved.
It contained more than chocolate chip cookies.
It contained love.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body…Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:7-10, 16-18)
We are like the cookie tin.
We are dented and faded.
Yet, we are precious in God’s sight.
Our outward body may be growing old, but we are being renewed on the inside.
We hold something far better than chocolate chip cookies.
We carry the Holy Spirit around inside us, if we are in Christ.
Looks are deceiving; they are only temporary.
The heart that is being renewed is a beautiful thing.
My youngest daughter was home from college for the weekend.
As soon as she walked in, she saw the teddy bear tin.
You made cookies, she said excitedly.
She opened that well-loved, faded, dented tin and searched for the gooiest cookie.
I read your blog regularly and am amazed at how you find a spiritual application for such ordinary objects and occurances. Can that be developed? I also appreciate the photos. If no one really wants the new tin would you sell it?
Thank you for taking the time to tell me that, Paula. Only by God’s grace can these posts be written each day. My prayer is that others will begin to hear God’s Whispers in their own life and see Him in the ordinary. Even though the second cookie tin is not the original, our family is growing and it is being used. God willing, there will be new stories to tell.
Gina
Wonderful Gina! I know its not the photo that is important but the words and the meaning that got us there. However, each day I read your work that involves an object, I start to picture in my mind what it will look like and hope you have added a photo!
HUGS ARE GOOD!
Jeff, now I’m wondering how many times what you picture is close to the actual object I’m describing! I agree with you. Hugs are good!
Gina