Bad Butter Ruins the Whole Bunch

In an effort to surprise my husband, I set out to make some molasses cookies he's been hankering for.  Not cooking in my own kitchen it took me a while to procure all the necessary ingredients, but alas, I found them all.  Ginger tried to hide, but I found her!  However, the only Crisco I could find was a little stinky.  I checked the date and it said use by 2008.  Well, maybe it will be okay I think?!

Wrong.  I kept hoping that maybe if I added the sugar it would be okay, or maybe now that the flour is in there it will remedy the problem, a little more cinnamon might do the trick?  I ended up making the whole batch. 36 cookies in all.  They looked beautiful and they smelled rancid.  I still can't get the smell out of my nose.  So sad!  I chucked the whole can of Crisco, scooped the remainder of dough into the can, scrubbed the bowls, and let the cookies cool off outside.  I kept the heat off & windows open for a whole hour and I think I can still smell it.

I'm sure the recipe is delicious and hope I can try again, and of course, I found another (good?) can of Crisco at the end of the whole matter.  But I wonder, will I ever be able to smell butter again and not want to gag? 

I should have remembered Jesus' parable "a little yeast ruins the whole bunch" (paraphrase Gal 5:9, 1 Cor 5:6) or "bad butter will ruin the whole batch".  Alas, the pervasiveness of sin and wrong thinking... it spreads and taints even what was once good (sugar-- yum! cinnamin--yum!) but it can't be redeemed, it was tainted.  I couldn't fool the flour and eggs that it would "be okay", they knew!  So no matter the outward appearance (and they did look pretty) they ended up in the trash, loaded right up with the stinky diapers.

Dear friends, let us throw off the sin that so easily entangles and causes us to stink-- and run the race with tasty buttery molasses cookies!  Let us loose this faulty mindset that a little sin or wrong thinking won't matter, it won't lead me astray if I just add some good ingredients on the side.  For I learned the hard way, bad butter ruins the bunch.