Sourdough and Resiliency

I’ve been baking with sourdough for over a year now and I enjoy it so much! I appreciate the simplicity of the ingredients required (for bread) and love that I get to use my hands to shape it. I enjoy the smell of fresh bread, so when it fills my kitchen it makes me smile. I’ve baked bread, crackers, bagels, cookies, muffins, hamburger buns, pizza crust, cinnamon rolls, scones, and I’m sure a few other things because I like trying new things in the kitchen. I’ve learned a lot about sourdough since I started and I’m sure that there is still a lot more I can learn. One thing I’ve learned is how resilient a strong starter can be and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how that is also true of people.

Sourdough starter needs to be strong in order to work well in bread. When you have a weak starter, the bread doesn’t rise as well. It often still tastes delicious, but it’s more dense. It also needs to be active. It needs to be growing and bubbly. If you use it too soon after feeding it, it won’t be quite ready. If you wait until too many of its bubbles have been popped, it will be overdone and not work well. It has needs and requires care and tending. You can put it in the fridge to keep it alive and go longer in between feedings, but at some point feeding is required if you want to use it to bake bread with. If you use it often, you can keep it on the counter, but then it will require daily feedings. So, what happens when you leave it on the counter for days without feeding it? It develops a hard crust on the top and becomes quite runny underneath because it ran out of food to eat — at this point one might think that it’s too far gone and needs to be scrapped, but I always tell people that sourdough starters are very resilient. Don’t count it out just because it’s hungry and in need of a little attention.

I always keep my starter on the counter and when I’m on top of things, I remember to feed it daily, but I often forget to and it will sit for multiple days waiting to be fed — this is how I know about its resiliency! Whenever I finally decide to give it attention, I take the dry layer off the top and throw it away. I pour the runny starter into a clean jar and feed it two times a day until it’s back to its strong, active state. Once it’s ready, I use it to bake bread and go back to regular, daily feedings until I forget for a few days again and have to give it extra attention all over again.

As I was thinking about this, I realized how much I felt like that sourdough starter sometimes. There are times in my life when I’m strong and active, ready to be used by God at any moment and then there are times when I need extra attention and some extra food to get back to being strong and active. Hear me out. If I view my life as the jar of sourdough starter — even more specifically, my spiritual life — then it’s up to me to keep giving it food to eat daily. When I take the time to “feed” myself through the Word and prayer, I am much more ready to be used by God to “bake bread” so to speak, whenever He calls on me to do so. Like the starter needs flour and water to “eat,” I need prayer and God’s Word to “eat.” Like the the starter is resilient and can come back with some food and attention, so I can come back too. I want to build a relationship with God that is resilient and I want to build a life that is resilient. Life, like the starter, is going to have hard days and there will be days/seasons where it seems like it would be “easier” to give up, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do. The reality is that the reason the starter is strong is because it’s been built up so many times that it can withstand the times when it isn’t getting the attention it needs and make a comeback once it’s been fed and tended to again. That’s the kind of relationship with God — and life — that I want. The kind that can withstand the hard times and come back strong and active again — the resilient life — by the grace of God.

I’ve noticed on more than one occasion that if I don’t make the time for prayer and Bible reading on a daily basis, I start to “dry out” and don’t feel as strong and active in my relationship with God as when I’m “eating” regularly. There have been times when I’ve put my “starter” in the fridge, so to speak. Times when I’ve known I wasn’t going to give it daily attention — for example, when I have a baby. I know that my relationship with God is strong enough to be in the fridge for a very short time, but I have to be careful not to let it get pushed to the back of the fridge — and I can’t put it in the fridge too often. When a sourdough starter is put in the fridge, it stays in its strong, active state, but it doesn’t grow. When I know that I’m going to have a few days or a week where I most likely won’t choose to make time to read my Bible — this usually happens the first few days to a week postpartum — then I put it in the fridge. This is intentional, not neglectful like when I leave it on the counter without feeding it. Is this making sense? I hope it is! Like anything that’s put into the fridge if it stays in there too long, it will start to go bad/become inactive — that’s why it’s important not to let it get pushed to the back!

Another thing about Sourdough is discard. Each time I feed my starter, I have some discard which I save until I have enough to create something like muffins, pancakes, crackers, etc. The discard isn’t used to make bread because it isn’t fed which means it isn’t active and bubbly; however, it can still be used to make delicious foods! Like the discard can still be used by the baker even though it isn’t strong, God can use us even when we feel weak to create beauty. He can use our weakness to show His strength in a powerful way! Most discard recipes call for at least one other ingredient to create something and sometimes God uses other people along with us to accomplish His purposes. Sometimes we think we’re being prepared to make bread and God is planning on using us to make muffins — they might be different, but they’re both good!

I mentioned last week that Marc and I have made the decision to really work toward making better decisions for the health of our family. One of the ways I’ve been headed toward healthy in my spiritual life is through daily prayer and Bible reading. I do my best to get up before my boys so I can have the quiet time of the morning to spend doing my devotions and Bible reading — which I always begin with prayer — but that doesn’t always happen in this current season. Sometimes I end up having time after breakfast to get it done while my boys play or watch some of the classic Veggie Tales that I remember watching as a kid. Sometimes it doesn’t get done until the afternoon or until Marc is home and can play with the boys while I read, but my goal is to make time for it each day just like I make time to eat or use the bathroom. It has become a time that I look forward to and enjoy — that hasn’t been the case my entire life, but I’m so grateful that it is now! It truly changes how my days go and the type of attitude and thoughts that I have throughout my day. It is a gift and a blessing that I try not to take for granted anymore. Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you” and that’s something I want to be true of myself, but it’s pretty hard to store up God’s Word if I don’t even take the time to know what His Word says.

I’m sure that the Sourdough Starter analogy isn’t perfect and that you could find something flawed with it or the similarities and differences would break down at some point, but my goal wasn’t to make a perfect analogy. My goal was to share a realization I came to using something tangible that I see on a daily basis. There is always a starter on my kitchen counter and a majority of the time there is discard in my fridge, so it makes sense to me that I would see the similarities there. “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” John 6:35 — I thought that was a fitting verse and reminder for a post that talks about sourdough.

Have you ever tried working with sourdough? What’s your favorite thing to make with it? If you haven’t made it yourself, but enjoy eating it — what’s your favorite thing to eat that’s made with sourdough?

Song(s) of the Week: This week I chose “The Comeback” by Danny Gokey. Enjoy!