I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I do know one thing: I’m thankful for a calm and collected husband. This is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve set the house on fire, and he’s just as patient and composed as the first time, if not more so since this seems to be a pattern.

Every other Friday night, our friends come over for small group. We love hosting them and we’re grateful to open our home and refrigerator to them all so often. Though we had just seen them two weeks prior, we all felt a little worn down from busy days and jobs and it had seemed like forever since we’d met and prayed together.

I wanted to make Friday’s get-together a little more special and I had exactly 2 very ripe bananas that needed to be used that night or tossed the next day. I decided I’d make banana bread for everyone.

As the title gives away, I failed miserably.

It started out with realizing the recipe called for shortening and I only had butter. No worries, I thought. Butter tastes better and I can do a 1 to 1 measurement switch.

The problem is, I read 1 cup of butter, instead of 1/2 cup - don’t ask how. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.

From there, I screwed up some other aspects of the recipe too. It was all downhill. I was supposed to use soft butter; mine was cold and I mixed it with the sugar anyway. I was supposed to mix the dry ingredients before incorporating the wet ingredients; I dumped them in random order. I was supposed to “quickly” add the mashed banana; I dropped the mashed banana in and then left the mixer for 20 minutes to talk to Tucker and my father-in-law, who had called to check-in.

And my worst offense - I put the whole thing in a tiny pan, fully expecting it to spill over a little bit. A little bit didn’t seem too bad.

Surprise - it spilled over a lot a bit.

Luckily, dinner was done and out of the oven prior to my sad banana bread going in, so we sat down to eat while it cooked.

Then came the burning smell…

I headed back to the kitchen to find the oven on fire. The mixture had overflown so much, huge chunks of banana-flavored mix were falling right on the smoldering bake elements and catching on fire. So while the little pan was now covered in yellow mix, the bottom of the oven sparked with tiny fires and the whole thing was smoking. I freaked out immediately - “Tucker, it’s on fire!” Tucker just said “Okay, calm down,” and took charge.

While he handled the fire, I opened all the doors and waved a small rag around. I felt very helpful, honestly, me and my little rag. Occasionally, I switched the rag for my apron, and back again. At one point, Tucker was at the back door and I was at the front. We both opened and closed the doors to create airflow and get rid of the smoke. For about a minute, the house was silent except for the doors creaking while we whipped them open and closed, the smell of my burnt banana bread slowly dissipating in the cool evening air.

Once we cleared the air and Tucker put out the fire, he encouraged me to try finishing the baking process. Most of the mixture in the pan was still gooey, only the portions that fell out were burnt black. But the banana bread was too far gone and every time I tried to turn the oven on again, it would smoke due to mixture chunks still stuck on the baking elements.

I texted my friends, “So I tried to bake you guys banana bread and failed. We got rid of most of the smoke, but sorry about the smell.” I figured I might as well come clean before they get here, right?

I kept waving my rag around, still feeling very helpful. I noticed Tucker didn’t join me with his own rag though, so I asked, “Is this helping?” He said, “No, but you seem happy doing it so I wasn’t going to say anything. Seems like it’s helping you calm down.”

Kind of hate how right he was, but it’s clear I’m completely useless when there’s a fire, so might as well give me a rag to wave around.

Our friends joined us a few minutes later and barely noticed the smell - I showed them my sad banana bread and they still thanked me for trying and even gave me some tips for how I could still save it (though, they didn’t work). And we had a wonderful small group evening, even without banana bread.

Oh God of all grace, make me more thankful, more humble…

That’s a line from my current favorite puritan prayer from The Valley of Vision and I was reminded of it again Friday night. Humbled again, by my own oven, but more thankful than ever. ;)

Happy baking, friends.