Smash, Add – Share!

My grandmother has to be the sweetest person I know.  Let me share a story.  A couple of weeks ago she called to tell me about this Amish Friendship Bread one of her friends shared with her.  She was so excited and read the instructions over and over!   Someone gives you a starter of dough in a Ziploc bag which you smash daily and add more ingredients at the halfway mark.  When you get to day 10 you add more ingredients, divide the mixture into 5 parts, 4 more starters and a portion to make your bread.  It’s more like cake to me but its called bread.  With that 5th portion you add even more ingredients and you end up with enough batter for 2 loaf sized bread/cakes. 

 

The goal is to give 3 of the 4 starters away with a piece of your bread, instruction and best wishes.  You keep the 4th starter and begin your 10 day process all over again.  If you keep it up every 10 days you’ll have bread for your family and 3 starters for someone else to start the process.  Remember all of the starters you give away are going to be divided and shared as well.  Imagine the multiplication that takes place.

 

OK, back to my grandmother, she decided to send me 2 starters initially.  What a sweet thought, we were both very excited!  But here comes the tricky part … after I did my 10 day process I ended up with 8 starters and only gave 1 away.  On my dining room table I have SEVEN starters that I’ve been smashing and adding and smashing and adding.  Guess what day we’re on today?  Oh dear, yes … it’s Day 10!

 

You might be thinking, why did you end up with 7 starters, well, I was going to give some to my neighbors but only 1 was home when I sent the girls out to spread the love.  My family LOVED the bread cakes and demolished them very quickly. 

 

I had an idea – don’t worry about the 7, keep them, bake them and freeze some, it will be no big deal, you can make different flavors, play around, come up with unique variations etc.  It made perfect sense to me at the time.

 

Plus – when I looked on the shipping box, my grandmother paid $25.00 to send me the 2 starters initially so I couldn’t just throw it out.  Remember I went through that process of smashing and adding and smashing and adding so I was connected to this stuff!

 

I laid in bed this morning and said Lord, I have 7 bags of stuff in there, and this means I will end up with 28 starters and 7 portions for myself which will make 14 bread/cakes.  Now what??? 

 

Answer – share this time, give it away, don’t try to keep it all to yourself … this is exactly what I want you to do with your love, talents, skills & passions.  When you go through the process of being smashed and I add to you daily and we smash and add over and over when you get to Day 20, if you don’t share you will be overflowing and you won’t have anywhere to store all the other great things I have for you.

 

Hmmm, isn’t that the truth?

 

I know that lesson, I’ve heard it before, but this morning when I laid in that bed a bit overwhelmed yet excited - this time it became real for me.  I didn’t realize it until now but last night I prayed about my Compass personal development business and I said Lord, this is such an amazing gift for women and I know it can really change people’s lives but I can’t really wrap my mind around figuring out how to tap into larger audiences of people but you know my heart and I trust that you will show me.

 

Right now in this moment, those 7 bags sitting on my dining room table and my goal of impacting 250 women’s within the next 6 months doesn’t seem so difficult.

 

If I keep my focus on God, allow Him to smash & add to my life on a consistent basis and I commit to freely sharing – anything is possible!

 

God used some fermenting sweet bread dough to really teach me a valuable lesson and I thank Him for it!

 

Warm Regards & Many Blessings,

Tamika

 

To learn more about Compass find me at http://www.mylifecompass.com/tamikabryant 

I also have a Compass tab on this blog.

 

 

 

 

 

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