An Ordinary Loaf

      Bread making is a favorite task of mine. Specifically, making something special, or different. I relish the hours that I can spend in devising a new bread recipe. Repeating the same recipe every week can get too predictable for my taste. I like something other than ordinary: Cranberry-Orange, Rye, even regular old bread made in a different way. 

      I highly enjoy visiting bakeries to see and smell of the baker’s art. Often the aroma of baked goods pervades the very air about the shop, and inside it seems you could almost taste it. There are large loaves, puffy and white; crusty round peasant breads, which are neither puffy, nor white; granary loaves bursting with cracked grains and seeds; and a host of other sweet and savory breads, all endeavoring to suit the customer’s palate. 

      The reason I like going to a bakery is not because I want to buy bread. I like going to glean ideas for my own baking: ideas that will help me make that which is common—regular whole wheat bread, turn into something uncommon. 

      Most people live a rather common life. I suppose that statement is obvious. Once in a while something extraordinary happens, but there is ordinary life surrounding the extraordinary. It is more palatable that way. Savory herb bread is much more appetizing than a heap of herbs by themselves. It needs the bread to be something special.

      There’s no denying that common, ordinary bread certainly is a blessing. But is it common after all? An inspiring book entitled, The Desire of Ages, says, “To the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life. The bread we eat is the purchase of His broken body.” Having been purchased in such an extraordinary way we cannot have an ordinary existence. The value that has been placed upon you and me means that we are not common. Even our food is the purchase of Christ. No matter what common duties and joys fill our lives, they are made most precious by the investment that Christ has made in us. 

      If you see yourself as an ordinary loaf of bread, take courage. With our Heavenly Father’s care, your common walk will be something altogether uncommon. Your ordinary service, when done for the Savior, will become something extraordinary. Though you are an ordinary loaf, rejoice, for “The cross of Calvary is stamped on every loaf.” – {DA 660.3}