Delivering Cakes

A few weeks ago a friend of mine gave a great talk at church. He brought up an example of a empathy that I thought was both funny and very profound. Have you ever been behind somebody in traffic who seemed to drive far too cautiously? As my wife would say, “Come on, what do you need, an embossed invitation to make a right turn?” From the perspective of everybody around them it may seem that they are doing things wrong. And our criticism of them may seem justified. But what if we don’t’ quite know the whole story? What if there is something going on inside the car that we are not privy to? What if they are responding completely appropriately considering the facts that they have before them?
In his talk my friend gave the example of how his wife likes to bake and decorate cakes. Occasionally he is asked to deliver the cake. Doing so he tends to take it very easy on the road, giving a lot of space fro braking if needed, avoiding quick starts at lights, and even seeming to need an embossed invitation to make a right turn. I could relate to this analogy pretty easily. Victoria and I also decorate cakes every now and then and I know how frustrating it can be when something doesn’t make it to the destination intact.
Lately I’ve been going through some struggles in my life and I feel like people are shouting at me and giving me the bird because they disagree with how I’m driving through them. If they only knew that I had a cake in the car and I’m trying to get it to its destination in one piece…