Leavening

I pick up the bowl and gently use my fingertips to press the air out of the dough. It has been resting all morning. Now doubled in size, I work it gently. Forming it into another ball, this one nestled into a proofing basket, I leave it to rest again. Later in the evening, my husband will tip the bread out onto a tray and bake it. This time we will rest while the scent of baking bread fills our home.

In a few days, we’ll repeat the whole process. It’s a part of the rhythm of our living—working the dough and letting it rest.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Matthew 33:13

Years ago, our one-year-old son was diagnosed with a life-threatening food allergy to peanuts and tree nuts. Overnight, our lives changed. Instead of sweets, vegetables, or proteins, “safe” became the primary category for food. Shopping became time consuming and tedious. Choosing what to eat, what to put in my grocery cart became fraught with hidden danger. A single bite could start a life-threatening reaction in my baby. We had to learn what it meant to live 15 minutes from death in the presence of food.

There is no rest from a food allergy. It goes with you everywhere all the time.

By the time our son was 13, all of the brands of bread in our local grocery stores carried labels declaring the bread “may contain traces of nuts.” Not a single local bakery offered bread that was safe for someone with nut allergies to eat. All of our bread options vanished.

So, on a rainy Saturday morning, my husband and I went to our local Barnes and Noble, got a cup of coffee and perused a stack of bread-baking cookbooks looking for a way to keep bread safely in our lives. When we found a cookbook with a method we thought was manageable, we bought it. Thus began a new routine that became so much more than daily bread.

“Then people will come from the east and west, north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.” Luke 13:29

Slowly, bread-making nourished us, body and soul. With his hands plunged into bread dough, my husband felt his muscles relax. Trying new recipes, my son and my husband giggled together, experimented, and dazzled us with sweet, savory, and wholesome loaves. My daughter learned to make Japanese milk bread! We gathered around our table, sharing bread, sharing stories, and laughing together. Within the safety of our kitchen, the aroma of bread became the aroma of rest.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Resting dough on our countertop meant fresh bread for our table. However, we discovered that bread-making injected rest in hidden ways into the ebb and flow of our daily living. It was sheer bonus that there would be bread for sandwiches and bread for celebrations.

Daily bread transformed life in our home.We rested knowing there would be hot bread to slather with butter and drizzle with honey. We rested knowing we would break bread together. We rested around the safety of our kitchen table.

And today, we still rest with our hands plunged into dough.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” John 6:35