Learning To Dance: The Story Behind Better Batter Gluten-Free Flour
I grew up in Florida – the sunshine state. The hurricane state.
When I was growing up, during each storm, my mother would say, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
As a ‘rhythmically challenged” girl, I appreciated her wisdom, but I didn’t really understand it.
A) Who would want to be in a storm?
B) I can’t dance….
C) Dancing in a storm can’t be safe….
I thought she was a being a little silly….
Fast forward to 2006: My children, myself, and most of my extended family were diagnosed with Celiac disease. This was long before most people, even many doctors, knew what it really was. I struggled to make sense of the good that could come out of this situation. I prayed for healing that did not come, I searched for food options that did not exist, and I tried methods that, frankly, were awful.
We were sick. We were tired. We were HUNGRY.
One night in desperation, I prayed for a way to make the recipes I grew up with. I went to bed, and had a dream that I was making special flour.
When I woke up, I mixed the ingredients and found that it actually worked! A prayer had been answered.
Long story, short: overwhelming interest in purchasing my flour mix led to the founding of my company, Better Batter. Having no business background, I had to learn business, and I was entering an extremely competitive industry. All I had was my experience.
Year over year, we've faced different struggles in the business: challenges to our faith, both moral and financial. It has never been easy, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
I have asked why, why, WHY through all of this: Why did God allow my family to be sick? Why did He place noncompetitive lil’ ol’ me in a cut-throat industry? Why allow me to experience trials over and over and over, only to come through (always at the last moment!) with provision?
Running a business, facing (now) multiple food allergies...at times it feels like a category 5 hurricane. So often, I have asked the Lord, “When will You allow the storm to pass?”
But my mother’s words still resonate.
The products and the company are God’s instruments. His Symphony is this: trials create desperation. Desperation leads to prayer. Prayer leads to opportunities to dance. But what does it mean to dance? To dance means...
o To create projects that care for the poor and oppressed
o To grow the fruits of the spirit
o To burn out the impurity of self-reliance
o To treat others the way I’d want to be treated
o To bring the Sacred into the Secular
Am I rhythmically challenged? Oh, yes! But I am called to be a dancer in all these senses.
So I raise my face to the rain; I bless the Lord for giving me the storm and the instruments; and I move--in time and in tune--to His heavenly symphony.
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