My family loves to drink homemade chai. Loose leaf tea, water, lots of milk boil happily together on the stove, with one other key ingredient, cardamom. We take a few grains of the cardamom throw them in the mortar and crush them firmly with a pestle. Not much different, I imagine, than the way people have been preparing this spice for thousands of years. As the spicy aroma fills the air we toss the crushed grains into the pot and their delicious flavor infuses the whole brew.
Isaiah 28 uses spices and grains as an extended metaphor of God's work in our lives. Can't you just smell the dusty scent as it describes dill, cumin and wheat being prepared for use? In a couple of poetic verses, Isaiah outlines the ancient processes for preparing spices. Each spice or grain demands unique handling. Each spice or grain must be crushed, ground, beaten or threshed. For some, the process of taking it from raw grain to a substance ready to fill a kitchen with nourishing flavors, requires much patience.
I would like to say that the relational aroma of my chai spiced kitchen is always warm and spicy, enticing and delicious, but it is not. Now several years into our life as a step family we have yet to become the beautiful unified family I envisioned before the wedding. The day each week when my step kids transition from their mother's home to ours is almost always tense and difficult. They are cold, angry, rejecting, and distant. Hurt wells up in me unbidden, like some toxic waste of the soul. Conflicts are frequent and not always constructive.
I long for a perfect home where geraniums bloom, blue birds sing on the windowsills, and honest warmth abounds. But although am am married to a terrific man, the perfect home of my imagination is still in the realm of myth. Life on this side of heaven involves hard times, conflict, and crushing pain. I often feel like I am the cardamom in the mortar and pestle. Crushed.
During such times, when hope is illusive. It helps me to remember two things: 1. the process of crushing doesn't last forever, and 2. the crushing is happening for a good purpose under the hand of my gracious God. He is releasing the flavor and aroma he planted deep in my being, preparing me for the delicious future he has planned from the beginning for me.
When I remember that, I can rest, sipping my chai, and waiting for the day when my time in the mortar and pestle will be complete.
