Too Much Peppermint | Christian Wife Life

It was two in the morning. I hadn’t been feeling well in and out of the day, and the pain was coming back again. But it was our anniversary.

Our sixth year of being married and fourteenth year of being together.

Anniversaries are kinda special to us. I still have some of the dried flowers from the first bouquet he got me when we dated. Dinner, maybe a movie, is how we celebrate. I also take out our glasses from our wedding night and we drink sparkling grape juice.

A few years ago I was into melt and pour soap making. I had these cute button shapes from a silicon mold I never used for soap. I saved it to one day make chocolate with.

My husband likes peppermint chocolate, and I had been dreaming of making him little chocolates. Suddenly it was two a.m. the morning of our anniversary and they still weren’t made.

Well, I had peppermint extract in the cupboard and my plan for attack was, “I’ll melt down the chocolate, add some extract, and boom. The chocolates will go into the mold, pop into the freezer, and pop chocolates out.” Simple.

*Laughs 

Well, let’s just say I had the chocolate melted, and uh, an enormous amount of extract splashed itself, dare I say, even, JUMPED with delight into the chocolate bowl. The fragrance was so strong my eyes stung and any scent of the sweet chocolate had vanished.

Still, I had to at least try and see how it cooled. Into the mold it went, and I used the remainder to make chocolate dots.

Let me add for my dear reader, I, personally, DO NOT like peppermint. But guess who got to taste test this catastrophe…

The closest I can compare it to is a York patty or one of those mints that are aimed for after lunch…just… you know, without the taste of chocolate. The chocolate taste became the after taste.

I saved the chocolates just in case my husband happened to like them, but they were too strong. I knew I had to make them again.

Only this time, I added the proper amount of peppermint, and a tad TOO MUCH water. Since I was melting chocolate chips, I added a little bit of water to keep it from hardening so quickly. (Using the stove would take too much time in my mind, so the microwave and bursts of 20 to 30 seconds it was). 

The chocolate came out smooth and after adding some more chips, it was thicker. I thought I’d try again with the silicone mold. The rest of the chocolate I made chocolate dots and tried to stack more chocolate on top when the bottoms cooled, so it would look like a chocolate kiss. Ehh… nice try. 

The dots hardened. But the chocolates in the molds, this time, did not. In fact, they have sat in the freezer for over a day now and still have not hardened enough. Yep.

However, my husband really liked the chocolate, that is, the second batch. He took one of the fancy molded chocolates, first batch. I stopped him from plopping that whole thing into his mouth. “Take a small bit, it’s intense,” I cautioned.

His eyes bulged as I saw the brain connect to the nerves in the tongue the explosion of peppermint and how THIS WAS NOT A DRILL! He coughed and then said, “I can breathe!”

I handed him a piece from the second batch, one he eyed more suspiciously. But he ate it and nodded, “This is a LOT better!”

The fancy chocolates I so wanted to impress him with failed. They still await for me to pry them out of their molds now.

We struggle with perfection. When things do not work out right, sometimes we feel so beat up we do not want to try again. It’s tough.

Lately, I’ve been reminded of the Refiner and His process for refining us like silver. In fact, I recently read a story in which a group of Christian women actually wanted to see the process of a silversmith and how that connects to God and scripture.  (You can read the story here) 

Sin, like my peppermint, can saturate us. It takes over everything. Puts a veil over what is good. Jesus dying on the cross gives us a new opportunity. As a human, I do not have the power to remove all of the extra peppermint that tainted the chocolate. However, Jesus does have that power. Not only for something so tiny like chocolate but for our own souls.

Through Jesus, we can surrender sin, and we can cut out things that mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually taint us. Jesus will do the rest of the cleansing and refinement. We simply need to be willing to hand over and start over. No matter how many times it takes. No matter what kind of ingredients to our life recipe we need to let go of.  

Our life, like a recipe, will need revision.

I had to make over the chocolates a second time, and even then, it was not what I desired. But my husband enjoyed the labor of my hand.

We are not going to do everything we want to. It’s not always going to go the way we want it. But with God, everything He wants will happen. The refinement He is doing we will enjoy at some point, just maybe not immediately. His way is always perfect. 

He takes His time. We need to slow down and not rush Him. The end result is worth it, but it is not given at the beginning. 

Comment Below:’

Have you ever had to remake something?

Monthly Scripture – (NIV) Colossians 1:11, “being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.”

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