Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sufficiency

I am a chocoholic, but not just any old chocoholic: I am a very discriminating one. For example, chocolate ice cream? Take it or leave it. Chocolate chip cookies? Take, every time. Chocolate chip cookies are my passion.

Over the years I have gathered several magnificent chocolate chip cookie recipes. Believe me, there are some gems out there. Nevertheless, my CCC receptors are highly sensitized to new ones and I am constantly on the prowl.

Funny thing, however, about chocolate-chip cookies and me: one is never enough. And since they are never found under the “Healthy Food” section of books or blogs, that is not a good thing. Sometimes--OK, frequently--I get a hankering for one, and I make a batch thinking, "I'll be good; I only need one." And one is never sufficient. Ever. I don't know if I've ever eaten ONLY ONE fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookie in my life. Ever.

If I could have only one dessert the rest of my life, I would beg it be warm chocolate chip cookies.

One of these is never sufficient.

I would be much healthier (and lighter) if I could convince myself that one cookie is enough. One is sufficient. 

Let’s talk about “sufficient.” To suffice means “to be enough; to be equal to the end proposed.” Now let’s talk about “sufficient” in a much more important arena than chocolate chip cookies.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that God sent us to earth without him in order to learn, grow and prove ourselves worthy of returning to his presence. However, even though we are separated from him, God, like every great parent, still wants to be part of our lives, wants to guide and direct and help us as appropriate. He sends all sorts of help our direction: scriptures, prophets, Christ’s original church, saintly people, and personal inspiration, to name a few helps. 

Sometimes in this testing period we sometimes think we need more, and sometimes we’re correct: we need more help, more wisdom, more strength, more resources.  But sometimes, even though we want more, we have, in fact, been given enough.

Sufficient.

The “end proposed” by our Heavenly Father is us back with him, tried, tested, improved and worthy. He offers to help us along the way, but sometimes the best thing he can do is help us understand that we have been given sufficient for our needs. 

When we learn that lesson, we have grown and become, in one aspect of our lives, more like him. Which is “the end proposed.”

--Miriam

Who has a two-year supply of chocolate chips in her storage room