My children took me out for lunch Friday at The Curious Kitchen in Senoia, Georgia. Dessert was apple pie cooked in a very small cast iron skillet with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top. Delicious! So delicious! Cast iron skillets, I love them. Can’t imagine cooking cornbread in anything else. Fried green tomatoes are so good cooked in an iron skillet, too.

Chief dug up an old skillet in one of his gardens years ago. We put it in the fire place on a cold day, burned off the debris. I seasoned it and the skillet lived to cook cornbread again. I remember it was a Number Ten. I’d never seen the number on an iron skillet and later read the numbers corresponded to the ports on the top of antique wood stoves.

Cast iron skillets need care to maintain their seasoning and we have to be careful how we clean them. I think we can compare our faith to a cast iron skillet. We have to season and strengthen our faith in God through prayer and scripture reading, being dedicated and determined to walk a Christian path. Just as were mindful of the care of the iron skillet we need to be mindful of what we let season our lives.

Our faith requires patience and consistency as we let God’s grace flavor our life with his love and holy light. Our faith also needs dedication and constant care to grow and deepen. Cast iron is forgiving of a little rust just like God forgives us when we stray from our faith. We can change each other as we witness with our faith. Proverbs 27:17 reads, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” It’s not complicated to take care of the cast iron skillets of our faith. Don’t make it hard, just put your trust in God and he’ll take care of everything.

Was reading quotes tonight I had taken photos of, yeah, I know that’s weird but…I found this one defining pondering. Fit perfect today as I was searching for inspiration. “Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind’s roulette wheel, coming to settle in which ever slot they feel pulled to,” — Christopher Moore. Well, I’ve had facts bouncing all afternoon but nothing but nothing popped in a slot.

“The good Lord made us all out of iron. Then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel.” — Marie Osmond