Hello again. It’s been a minute. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s been almost three years. Wow.

How have you been? I’ve missed you all.

I’ve missed this feeling of the laptop keys flying under my fingertips. I’ve missed the long gazes out my dining room window and praying for God to turn the words from my heart to something coherent and meaningful. I’ve prayed for God’s words to fill my voice. I’ve thought long and hard about these missed moments.

I haven’t gone far – just the next room over. I’ve been in the kitchen from early mornings until late, late nights. I went back to my roots as a pastry chef, and God has really truly blessed this business He called me to recreate: Laura The Baking Artist. The custom orders for all things cakes and cookies have flooded my home. I feel like I’ve had almost no time to breathe since the Christmas season of 2023. My life is filled with incoming orders, creating, and having to relay the sad news of overbooked timeslots. I’m truly blessed to be this busy.

Yet. And yet, I miss the person I was prior to 2023. I’m a little different now.

The reason I stopped writing in was because something snapped and was lost inside of me in 2022 and 2023. There were many fires I went through including over 200 rejections from agents and publishers for my books, my husband and I tried and failed multiple times to adopt a child, we had a six-year-old girl who lived with us for only 3 months before leaving us in a very very horrible way, I had some difficult friendships end, and complicated times with family.

I was broken. However, one interesting part of this time period is that God used ANOTHER broken part of me to heal and change my identity. When I lost my ability to write, God showed me I’d lost something else too.

Have you ever lost something? More specifically…have you ever lost yourself?

There’s a quote from H. G. Wells that hits me:

“Once you lose yourself, you have two choices: find the person you used to be, or lose that person completely.” – H. G. Wells

(If you don’t know who this is, he’s the author of great classics like The Time Machine and War of The Worlds. These are fabulous sci-fi works that I highly recommend.)

I’m going to challenge this author by posing a third option: God can change that person you used to be.

You start by asking God to show you your true identity. Wait for His answer. He might tell you to neither say “hello” nor “goodbye” to the person you used to be. Maybe, just maybe, He has a plan to use pieces of who you were to create you anew.

That’s what God did with me as a baker/pastry chef.

Baker wasn’t my first career choice – not by a longshot. You see, I became a chef in 2007 under the guise of a complete vegan who created “healthy sweets without the guilt.” I used all organic ingredients, vegan recipes, lots of gluten-free/allergen-free, and whole grains. At the time, this followed the diet I’d lived from the age of 10. I didn’t choose to follow this; however it had somehow become part of my identity. This false identity followed me well WELL into my adult years.

As a teen, I spent many hours a day in the kitchen helping to prepare our family meals and decided I might as well use this knowledge in a career. I built a “healthy” business that I found little joy in. I sold at four weekly Farmer’s Markets and found myself always tied to weather changes, slow seasons, guessing crowd turnout, and fluctuating from sellouts to heaps of waste. It was stressful and caused a complete burnout when I became pregnant with our son.

I look back at those years before 2013, and I find it interesting to put myself into that Laura’s mindset. I remember saying again and again how “I wish I could do something that would make more of a difference.” I was unfulfilled. I was a Christian and follower of Jesus, yes, but I was empty in my career and daily life. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I can say it boldly now: I believe it was because I never truly chose to be a healthy chef. At least, I never made that choice on my own. I was living someone else’s dreams. I baked to make someone else happy, and I was miserable. I had some eating disorders, and the constant proximity to food caused a battle with weight.

During the years between 2013-2019, I slowly left that world behind. This didn’t just take place in my business but also took place in my mind and lifestyle. I changed my focus, values, and identity. This included changing my diet from a “healthy” (not really) vegan to a much healthier omnivore, starting to write a book and then another book, and becoming a teacher at a local private school. These paths caused me to grow away from the person I was trained to become. These new paths challenged me to see others in a new light. I grew to love and stop judging other people because I got to experience new relationships and new surroundings. I fell in love with writing because it was a way to show the world what I was finally learning.

Looking back, there’s parts of me who misses the simplistic nature I had, but larger parts of me shudders to remember the judgmental/naïve/selfish/obnoxious Laura. I don’t blame her; she just hadn’t gone through the fires of growth yet. Maybe a Laura 10-20 years from now will feel the same about me.

This younger Laura wasn’t all bad. She had dreams. She had hopes. She was still filled with prayers. She was, however, misguided and wrongly motivated.

The vegan chef Laura was motivated by making money, finding a purpose through food, and pleasing her family. The writer Laura was motivated by wanting to be understood and being noticed.

You know, that’s the first time I’ve been honest enough to write those truths down. They’re true. And you know what? God still loved me through that. He still blessed me. He still cared for me. He still heard every cry of my heart. My motivations might have been superficial, but I’ve always desired to be in God’s perfect will. So, I gave my future over to Christ. Do you know what He did? Yup, He changed me. Dang, I so wish I’d learned my lessons without growing through some fiery circumstances though!

I discovered that I had to lose myself in order to find life anew through my Savior. What a wonderful, wonderful Savior.

Matthew 16:24–25 (NIV)
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
Philippians 2:3–4 (NIV)
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

His good, pleasing, and perfect will. Wow, He’s so good!

In 2022, when writing started to become challenging, God pushed me to go back into being a pastry chef with my own business. I fought Him for many months over this decision. I was afraid to face that part of me again. I was afraid the eating and weight difficulties would return. I was afraid that I’d fail, and afraid it really wasn’t God bringing me back. Then, God showed me that although this obsession with creating food might’ve been wrong at one time, it didn’t mean this career was the wrong choice for me now. God used what might’ve been once harmful to me to become something beautiful. Instead of having a goal of “healthy sweets” (let’s face it, they were NOT healthy), my goals turned to making beautiful and tasty art that would help people to smile and be an “icing on the cake” to each event. I love getting to talk with each person I create for. I love using edible ingredients to make art that tastes good. I love the art of creating. I love blending experiences I learned in culinary school, with the times I worked as an art teacher, with the techniques I picked up when I thought I’d be a published illustrator, and the skills I learned from all the people along this journey of life.

God used pieces of the old me and created something new.

It’s kind of like the song See A Victory where it says “you take what the enemy meant for evil and you turned it for good. You turned it for good. Oh, you’re working it out. You’re working it for my good.”

The old me wasn’t evil and evil people didn’t manipulate me either. However, it wasn’t benefiting me or those around me to the extent that it could’ve.

The same rings true for the writer Laura. Her story is coming into place. You’ll have to stay tuned for her identity unveiling; God’s still working on it. However, the fact I’m writing this now shows God is doing something truly amazing!

How about you? Are you seeing a goodbye, hello, or creative change from the self you used to be? Have you lost something in the fire(s)? Ask God to show you the identity He has for you. I guarantee it’s beautiful.

Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV) “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.“