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Granny’s Cookies

When I was a kid, someone told me that each person is the very best at something. Because God created each of us in his image and yet totally unique, every person has something that they are able to do better than anyone else.

God created mankind in his own image (Gen 1:27)

With the simple faith of a child, I believed that superpowers were out there waiting to be discovered. What was my ability? Would I jump higher than anyone in history? Maybe I could spit a watermelon seed almost forever. I practiced until my mom told me to stop because it was bad manners.

I read the Guinness Book of World Records until the pages became dog-eared. It was full of hundreds of people who were official. They were each the best.

I watched professional athletes on TV and envied them because they had discovered their gift. I had a favorite book about the baseball hall of fame. I would re-read stories about “The Babe” and think how awesome it must have been to be the greatest home run hitter in history.

Samson earned my admiration. He walked past a sword and spear to kill 1,000 of his enemies with the jawbone of a donkey. Strength and style. What a guy.

Of course, some talents aren’t physical. Albert Einstein was a supergenius theoretical physicist with a sense of humor and amazing hair. How cool to be him?

My daughter, Erin, is probably the fastest ever at the Solitaire app. She’s a blur of thumbs and iPhone. It is unbelievable to watch. It’s like she moves cards with her mind before I can even identify them.

As a twelve-year-old, I thought others were lucky to know how they were special and to be celebrated for it. However, I would silently wonder why I hadn’t discovered my special power. Had God given me one?

There is another kind of best. A gift that may not be as widely recognized, but is more powerful. I call these examples “Granny’s cookies”.

My grandmother makes the world’s best chocolate chip cookies. No doubt. Ever since I was a little kid, she would bring me (well maybe the whole family) these gallon-size Ziploc bags overstuffed with the most mouthwatering cookies anyone ever tasted. I would gobble them down and risk how many could be eaten before getting in trouble.

She sent the same, generous, giant bags of them to my dorm in college. They were like gold. Granny’s cookies.

When I got my own house and kitchen, I asked to make a copy of her recipe. She said she didn’t have one written down. I thought to myself “This is awesome, she has memorized a recipe held in secrecy, probably passed down from her grandmother in the old country.”

Then she finished her response, telling me that she didn’t keep a written copy of the recipe because it was on the back of every bag of Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips.

What?!

Images of passing down an old family recipe vanished as I wondered how they could be the world’s best cookies and be made from a recipe on every bag at WalMart.

The answer was simple. They were the best because she made them just for me, out of the pure love a grandmother has for her grandchild. Nobody else will ever be able to do that the way she did.

Babe Ruth’s most famous home run may be his called shot in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. My favorite home run of his is from a World Series six years earlier when he promised a hospitalized “Little Johnny” Sylvester that he would hit a homer just for him the next day. The Babe loved children and dedicated much of his life to them.

Erin may achieve fame and fortune on the Solitaire circuit, but my favorite gift is the way she makes me laugh. She effortlessly weaves together jokes with stories of the times we have shared and the reasons she loves me. Nobody else will ever be able to do that like she does.

Each of us is capable of greatness. It may be as simple as knowing that a neighbor needs a hug and giving it freely. It may be quietly listening when someone needs to vent their frustrations. It may be summoning the courage to tell a friend something they need to know but don’t want to hear.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:10)

Maybe I won’t be a celebrity because of athleticism, genius, or a novel skill. That’s OK. I’d rather aspire to the second kind of greatness anyway.

Giving love to someone, gift wrapped in an act of kindness is an amazing power. Nobody can do it just like you can. God made sure of that.

I want to radiate the very image of God that was used as a blueprint for my design. I want his love and perfect timing to be my power. I want that to be what I am best at.

The amazing part of this second type of gift is that you don’t have to prove that you are the best. It isn’t about winning a championship or being awarded a Nobel prize. It is achieved by taking your best and giving it to someone else.

I probably wouldn’t have loved Granny’s cookies if she had only brought them once. Her persistence forever linked a simple act of kindness to the love she had for me. I remember her fussing to herself when she cooked a particular batch too long. She wanted them to be perfect. She knew what they symbolized.

My friend Kelly stops by to see me at work almost every Friday afternoon. He has had that habit for years. When we worked in different states, he would call instead. Sometimes he has news to share, and sometimes he doesn’t. The visits were never about productivity, they were about letting me know I was important to him. Maybe he’s the best at that.

Too often, I hold high regard for gifts that the rest of the world tells me are valuable. I need to spend less time cheering for them, and more time thanking the people who have given me the world’s best.

Thank you, Granny. You give me the best and I love you.

I was right as a kid. Superheroes are all around me. I just wasn’t looking for them the right way. My heroes look more like Clark Kent than Superman.

And true greatness is a cookie more often than it equals mc².

Jimmy McAfee