How Do You Find Time To Bake Bread? - Part Two

One of the reasons I shared my baking day this week is to share some practical ways that I do fit bread baking into my routine. Yesterday I shared the need to keep proper priorities. Bread baking is not going to be in every woman's goal list. If you do desire to bake bread and become more efficient in it - this is some of random things that have worked for me.

• Practice - I've baked bread for years. Mixing up several different recipes and keeping them all moving smoothly, especially with the help of several little ones licking the spoons, AND not lose your mind, only comes with practice.  Like any skill, such as bicycle riding, time and effort are the only way to consistent success.

• Tools - Don't even try to mix up a double batch of bread with a normal mixer. My Bosch mixer is like another set of hands and allows me to mix much larger batches than I'd ever be able to knead by hand. But it is expensive, and is certainly not necessary to make good bread.

• Home - I am home all day, almost every day with my children. Baking bread takes time. Though much of the time is not hands on, it still takes frequent attention for several hours. I can care and teach my children throughout the day and give a few minutes occasionally to the bread. 

• Techniques - With practice comes learning techniques, such as an overnight rise, that will make baking easier, more fun, and more tasty.  I've tried to share some of these tips through this bread baking series but I fear I probably overwhelmed most of you with too much information.

• Time of Life - Right now I don't have any tiny ones at my house. There has been many days the last seven years that I could have never pulled off a baking day like this week. Frequent stops to nurse a baby, or to rest tired pregnant legs cut into a day's work. But what work is God really calling me to, caring for a little one, or whatever task is on "my" goal list? Or you may be in another stage of life that I can't imagine, a quiet house - and no one to eat all the food you have time to bake.

Is it Amy Carmichael who says "In acceptance lieth peace"?  I constantly need to remember that God has given me all I need, the time, the resources, the tools, and yes, the children. I can chaff against His boundaries and I have. I can long for more time, and I will. But accepting His provision and His limits, whether of time or energy, money or skills, big kitchen or tiny, or any of the other variations in this world, is the only way to joy.

And that is worth far more than freshly baked bread.