I was looking online last night and found a recipe for lemon bunt cake. One thing you should know about me is that i love lemon cake. So i decided to make it. I checked the cupboards and then shopped for the final few ingredients. Perfect. Katie came over to help me ...and the cake making began. We measured, poured, counted, stirred, whisked and sprayed until we were ready to put it in the oven. Now all we had to do was wait.

The timer pinged and the sweet smell filled the kitchen. We pulled it out and put on the glaze...yes the glaze. Everything was perfect. Now to turn the cake out onto the plate. I could see it, the cake would be a masterpiece, from somewhere people would gasp at its beauty, and make mmmmm noises when they saw it, their lips watering.

So my day dream ended when we realised that it was well and trylu stuck in teh pan. Actually, as we discovered, only the top half was stuck. And here we are in the kitchen surrounded by a sweet aroma, with half a cake plopped out onto the cake and the other half still in the plan. A little more spatula action and the second half falls out too; not quite, but ironically almost perfectly lined up on top of the first.

Trying not to be too discouraged by the mess that was our cake, we did the only thing we could. Added the final glaze, and let it cool.

We came back a little while later ready to eat, and eat we did. And......it was delicious. It tasted evey bit as yummy as i had imagined.

It got me thinking, sometimes even with the best made plans things don't turn out how you think. I guess i am thinking about my life. I know at 16 i had big plans of going onto school, teaching, pretty sure i never planned to even visit America, let alone Kyrgyzstan, Thailand or China, and yet, all these years on this is how things have turned out.

I have been here in Seattle almost 4 years, travelled all over the world, seen things and had experiences that i never imagined. Things are not how i would have planned them but they are just as sweet. I am only just starting to understand the freedom that i could experience if i can truly embrace the idea that I don't need to always be in control. That God's plans for me are better than the ones i see. His plans are to give me a furture and a hope. I can surrender my plans to God. Giving them to him with my hands open, and a willing heart, to trust Him for the future - even if it doesn't look like what i thought it would.

I guess it's a lesson that i am just going to have to keep on learning...