The Disappointing Candle

So I was at a friend’s house the other day and upon entering their home with their daughter by my side, a brief smile emerges on the daughter’s lips only to be replaced by a frown. A wonderful aroma drifts before me and I take a deep breath. “Cookies.” I think to myself. “Lovely homemade sugar cookies to be exact.”

“Oh,” the daughter says with annoyance. “It’s just the disappointing candle.” She explains to me that when her mother burns the candle it smells like cookies. Cookies that she craves only to find out they don’t exist.

I blink and smile politely. “Ah, it’s just the candle,” I say to myself. “Just the candle that’s making my mouth water, nothing more.”

Then I began thinking. How many times in life have I entered a ‘so called home’ and been disappointed because what I thought was there really wasn’t? I was lured in by the scent, the smell that was enticing me to taste only to find out that what I thought was there wasn’t. I had gotten myself so worked up for the taste of the ‘cookie’ that I didn’t even pay attention to the details. There were no cookies sheets sprawled out over the kitchen counters. The mixing bowl and spatula were neatly put away. There was no oven timer beeping in the background as a reminder of what was baking. There was no plate piled high with the sugary delights. There was nothing but a simple candle burning on the countertop. A single candle on the countertop creating an illusion of something greater, tastier.

Life is full of disappointments, packed full in my opinion, jobs, marriages, friends. Am I paying attention to the details or am I just scratching the surface? Am I living my life as the disappointing candle? Am I just luring others in with what they see on the surface or am I really producing something for them to take a hold of? Would God or another walk in and say, “Oh, it’s just the candle?”

I don’t want to be the disappointing candle. I would rather expose myself for who I am and let other see and taste the real me. Sure I am full of faults; sometimes I add too much salt to the mixture and leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Sometimes I add too much sugar and leave your head spinning in a sugar-educed comma. And sometimes, only sometimes, I am just perfect and you want to come back for more.