Next thing you know, smoke was filling our little apartment. The smoke alarm was going off. I turned on the stove vent and opened a window. She called out from the bedroom, "Is everything ok?" I told her that it was ok, I had just turned up the heat a little too high.

I brought in the pancakes for her to eat. They were a bit burnt. She said that she would eat them anyway. After she ate them she asked about the cheese that I had put in the pancakes. She noticed orange specs in the pancakes. I told her that I didn’t put in any cheese. We thought about it and realized that I had turned the stove up so high that I had melted parts of the orange plastic spatula in to the pancakes.

Needless to say, she never asked me to cook again. She is a really good cook. I choose to let her function in her gifting.

Sometimes we mess up in life and are afraid to try again.

This morning, she had to leave the house early. She told me, "There is some pancake batter made, if you want to make some pancakes." I said, "Do you remember what happened the last time I tried to cook pancakes?" We both had a laugh. Just to give you some perspective, my pancake burning incident was 28 years ago, and by the way, our daughter turned out just fine, in spite of the plastic while pregnant diet.

My wife left and I went to the kitchen. I thought, "I can do this." So I got out the pan and the spray and a plastic spatula. I heated up the stove and poured out the batter. I’m happy to report that the pancakes turned out really well, even though I did leave them unattended for a few minutes while I went and checked my email in another room.

Sometimes we mess up in life and are afraid to try again. It may be a task, or it may be a job, or relationships. Failure is not final. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:1).

"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

11 Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without! by Leonard Sweet Using 11 classic figures from Scripture, Leonard Sweet details key personal attributes that make up God's Dream Team for your life.

Mike is a pastor and writer for a number of online publications.

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