​My Lesson from Catastrophic Masala Tea Creation Failure

​We just got back from Nepal this past weekend and had a great time. It was fun to connect with our leaders over there and see all of our kids new and old.

One of my favorite things to do (that might sound funny) while in Nepal is to drink a beverage called masala tea. It is made from local Nepal/India spices and is a real treat while we are in that part of the world. Our home managers over there always see how much I love it and decided to help me purchase a giant bag of the tea and show me how to cook it. It was fun to shoot a video of one of our older girls from the orphanage who works at the cafe, show us how to create it. I watched her warm the milk to a boil, pour in an appropriate amount of tea, cook it for a set amount of time and then strain the loose tea from the drink and then serve it to us. I even shot a video for all of us back here to make sure I knew exactly how to create my magical mixture once back in the states. Well, last night was going to be my moment of truth.

Last night Yolanda went to bed before I did and I thought to myself, “Of course I can boil some milk, pour in tea and cook my masala.” What ensued was a catastrophic failure. I got my pot out and poured in the appropriate amount of milk. I figured that I didn’t want to wait a long time so I put the stove on the highest setting and waited for the milk to boil. The problem was that at that temp, all the milk at the bottom of the pan was burning/cooking to the bottom of the pot. I was wondering why it was taking so long for the milk to boil so I started to stir/scrape the bottom of the pot to see what was the issue. When I removed the burned milk from the bottom of the pot, the milk instantly boiled over on the stove and a full pot of milk went all over the stove, counter and floor of the kitchen. I was sure that Yolanda would smell my burnt concoction and wake up. Feeling fully defeated from my mistake and failure, I cleaned up everything, counted my situation as a total loss, grabbed some crackers from the cupboard and went and watched tv.

The reason I share this story is to ask about failure in life. Did you realize that failure is the greatest educator in life? When you make a mistake you can learn a lesson about how NOT to do something. The key is how we learn from those mistakes and move on from them. Even the fact that I could not effectively boil milk was a very simple concept to my wife (who made me masala tea this am and had zero trouble, by the way) but was a complete mystery to me. The mistakes we make in life are not predicated on even someone else’s knowledge of what we are doing wrong. Think about God seeing our lives and knowing exactly how we should deal with difficult situations that we will probably mess up. The key is to see what we did was wrong, make a note and keep moving forward. The only mistake that is a complete failure is one that stops us from trying again.

We are going to make mistakes in life but it’s important that we never stop learning from what we did wrong and then seeking God and his guidance for all areas of our life. I am going to consult Yolanda and have her show me how she created my tea from this am and I will become a master masala tea creator!

Have a great day and don’t make the worst mistake in life of not continuing to try. You can make it. God loves you, is cheering you on and we are praying that you learn the lessons you need to learn to be the person that God created you to be!