Brown Sugar, Fire, and Divine Timing

Brown Sugar, Fire, and Divine Timing

By Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

Sometimes we want the blessing but not the baking. We want the reward but not the recipe. We want the outcome without ever honoring the process, but I’ve come to know deeply that the process is the promise. Life doesn’t just hand us miracles; it mixes us into them. It folds us in. It kneads us down and warms us up slowly, deliberately until what we are, and what we were meant to be, becomes one and the same.

Welcome to the pot, y’all.

Today, we’re going to be baking. I’m glad you pulled up on me I can definitely use the extra hands, cause baby, we’ve got an order to fill. So go ahead and take off your jackets, roll your sleeves up, and wash your hands real good. Grab a pair of gloves, too, because we can’t let nothing under our fingernails contaminate this divine batch of cookies. We’re baking with intention, with love, with purpose.

Now, if oatmeal raisin ain’t your flavor, we’ll make a single batch of chocolate chip just for you but just one, ‘cause the main order is for brown sugar oatmeal raisin cookies. And trust me, I’ve got a word for you kneaded right into this dough.

I remember the scent of brown sugar melting into butter like it was yesterday. I was in the kitchen with my grandmother Celestine, who did everything with soul. She would wear her knickerbockers and a tank top, her hair pulled back, and that ever-present hand towel draped across her right shoulder. She moved with grace, humming something only heaven could decipher.

I never knew the tune, but I knew the spirit of it it was a melody that made things rise, whether it was dough in the bowl or joy in my heart. And when she turned around and smiled with that open-faced grin gold teeth twinkling on both sides baby, that smile was enough to season any dish.

I’ve smiled and cried at the same time, have you? It's a holy moment when grief and gratitude sit at the same table, break bread together, and teach you that life is a meal best served with patience.

My grandmother’s kitchen was my first sanctuary. It was where flour and faith mixed together in the same bowl. Where sugar met stories. Where the smell of cinnamon and Spirit filled the air. Where I learned that slow heat produces richness, tenderness, and wholeness.

Let me tell you something that I hope sticks to your soul like dough to a wooden spoon you can’t rush the good stuff. If the Creator said He will, then baby, He will. But you have to wait. Some of life’s finest blessings come on the heels of waiting. The oven’s got to be preheated just right. You can’t crank the heat up to 550 thinking you can bake chewy, tender cookies in four minutes. No, fast heat will burn the edges, leave the center raw, and fill your whole house with the stench of haste.

 It might even burn the house down. And isn’t that just like life? Isn’t that just like us trying to shortcut the process, trying to microwave the miracle, trying to bypass the blessing for the sake of speed?

Say Amen.

Don’t trade what’s important for what’s immediate. Waiting isn’t punishment it’s preparation. It’s preheating. It’s the warming of your spirit until you’re ready to receive the fullness of what’s coming.

Trust in the Creator’s recipe. Every ingredient has purpose yes, even the bitter ones. Even the moments that feel like too much salt or not enough sugar. Even the times you were left in the dark like dough covered by a cloth, rising in silence.

Guard your fellowship with the Creator. That connection is sacred. That’s your kitchen time with the Divine, where the holy hands of the Universe knead you into something useful. Where your brokenness becomes binding and your sweetness is revealed slowly, through heat and process.

That’s where your soul gets sifted and your purpose gets folded in gently.

I remember watching my grandmother measure things with her heart. No cups. No spoons. Just knowing. Just wisdom passed down from hand to hand. And I think of the Creator that way measuring out blessings, trials, grace, and mercy with infinite knowing. We don’t always understand the proportions.

Sometimes it feels like too much waiting, too much struggle, too many raisins when we wanted chocolate chips. But over time, we come to realize He knew what He was baking. He knew what we needed to be complete.

So I’m speaking to the impatient part of you, the part that’s standing in front of the oven window asking, “Is it ready yet?” The part that wants the promise without the process. Trust the timing. Trust the hands. Trust the heat.

I say to the Creator, I will do it in Your timing. I trust You.

So as we stir this bowl, as we line these trays, as we portion out this dough with love and care, I want you to reflect on the fact that you are in the oven of purpose right now. It may feel hot, it may feel long, but baby you are becoming.

You are being baked into something sacred, something tender, something chewy with goodness and layered with wisdom. And when the time is right, you will come out golden, whole, and ready to be a blessing to whoever tastes of your life.

Now let me season this spiritual reflection with a little parable that might stick to your ribs:

There was a young potter who fashioned a beautiful clay bowl. She painted it carefully, adorned it with sacred markings, and placed it into the kiln. But as the heat rose, the bowl cracked.

She tried again with another bowl, thicker this time, more carefully formed. Still, the heat revealed a fracture. After several attempts, she cried out, “Why do they keep breaking?” An old potter who had been watching smiled and said, “It’s not that the heat is wrong it’s that your hands are still learning what the fire requires.” The young potter looked confused. The elder continued, “The fire doesn’t lie. It shows what was hidden. Let the fire teach you what to fix in your hands, not what to fear in the heat.”

Beloved, that’s the wisdom: the heat reveals, it doesn’t destroy. It shows where we need more kneading, more folding, more time. The fire is not your enemy it’s your teacher.

So don’t rush. Don’t fold under pressure. Don’t skip the process. And don’t forget to smile like Celestine did with gold in your soul and a hymn on your lips.

Now pass me that tray we’ve got cookies to make.