Surprise Cake of Doom and Awesomeness

Jello cake. I didn't know jello cake was a real thing. I thought it was something that Emily Simons, had made up in a moment of brilliant creativity during a brain storming session for the menu for our leader dinner meeting. If you Google Jello Cake you will get 1,700,000 results. I don't like jello. I don't like cake. And I don't like Swedish fish either. Anyways, I asked Emily what we should have for dessert at our leader meeting, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Jello! Oh, jello cake!" It sounded interesting, so I told her to role with it. We decided a cake made out of jello, with a cool whip frosting would be fantastic and out of the ordinary. The day of our meeting I received a text from Emily saying "Someone gave me an awesome idea for the jello cake! I can't wait to show you!" Three hours before our meeting, Emily showed up at my apartment with a baked chocolate cake, four boxes of jello, a bag of gummy bears, a bag of Swedish fish, plastic army men, and three very happy looking toy people. I was excited. Apparently a relative of hers had told her about a cake that they used to make, where you take an actual cake, and pour jello over the top of it, and then frost it with cool whip. We decided to go for it (this was still before we knew we could have gotten 1,700,000 different recipes for jello cake). We made all four boxes of jello, poked a few holes in the cake for fun, and timidly poured the jello over the cake. What happened before our eyes made us slightly terrified, and quite a bit curious. We were like 2nd graders doing our first science experiment. Every last bit of the jello soaked into the cake. You couldn't even tell that we had poured jello on it. We thought we must have not added enough jello, so we went to the store and bought 8 more boxes. Upon arriving back at my apartment, we proceeded to make the 8 boxes of jello, and then poured it over the cake once more. With approximately 3/4 inch of standing jello above the cake, we decided that was adequate. Next came the gummy bears and Swedish fish, which quickly sank to the top of the cake. Running short on time, we put the cake into the freezer to try to get the jello to set in the little, precious time we had before the rest of the leaders were to arrive. 30 short minutes later, the jello was set, ready for frosting. After a thick layer of cool whip, we proceeded to place an army of plastic soldiers on one side of the cake, the three happy people and an army of gummy bears on the opposite side, with the armies facing each other. We were quite proud of our creating. A little frightened, but quite proud.

I made a pan of back up brownies just in case...

After everyone had arrived and dinner had been served, Emily and I were antsy to see everyone's reaction to our "Surprise Cake of Doom and Awesomeness." We brought it out, set it on the table, and looked around the room to observe the reactions. At first everyone was silent, and looked confused. Then there were murmurs, whispers, and finally someone said "what the heck is that?" Without missing a beat, Emily explained the two armies:

"The plastic army is going to attack the happy people and the gummy bears. The people are happy because they know that the gummy bears are ferocious and about to eat all of the plastic army people. This one (pointing to a headless plastic army person with a gummy bear standing close by) got his head eaten by the ferocious gummy bear. That's all."

Before waiting for any responses, I began to cut and serve the cake, plastic army men and all. Everyone looked scared. When everyone had a piece in front of them, and no one was eating, I informed them that they were all obligated to take a bite of cake. Everyone started to slowly eat a bite. I nervously put a large bite in my mouth.

...

The jello cake was an explosion of flavors and textures. The chocolate cake combined with the raspberry jello tasted something like stale chocolate raspberry candy that you might get for Christmas from your Great Aunt's second cousin twice removed (you know, the one that doesn't like you but thinks she has to buy you something every year). It was awful. But the texture is what really took the cake (yes, pun intended). It was soggy. It was spongy. It was cold. The more you chewed, the more it grew in your mouth. Then there was the layer of jello on top; the texture of jello is strange enough on its own. And seriously, the Swedish fish? They were the kicker that the cake didn't need. A mouth full of soggy, spongy, sticky, cold, gooey nastiness that multiplied as you chewed. I couldn't handle it. I attempted to swallow, but it didn't go so well. I managed to mumble "Oh, it isn't that bad", as a tried to inconspicuously walk into the kitchen and spit into the garbage can. By this time everyone had taken a bite of the cake, and no one was swallowing. They continued to hold it awkwardly in their mouths, then managed to choke it down as they set their cake down and pushed it away.

The room erupted with laughter, and we began to talk about how awful the cake was. Emily and I were still a little bit proud of our creation, despite how horrible it had turned out (deep down in our hearts, we knew it was going to be one of the worst ideas we had ever had...). I brought out the pan of brownies I had as Plan B, and we all continued with our meeting while we ate.

As I thought about the creation of the Surprise Cake of Doom and Awesomeness, I couldn't stop thinking about how much jello the cake soaked up before there was a standing pool of jello on top. It's kind of like when Christ pours His love out on us. Christ pours and pours and pours, filling us until we are overflowing with His love. Sometimes it's hard to remember that it takes more than just a little bit of His love before we are at a place in our lives where we can love others. We can't receive a little bit of love, and think we can begin to pour love out on other people. We can't expect just four packets of jello to be enough to have a standing lake of jello on top of our cake. The cake continues to soak up the jello, just as we need to continue to receive and soak up Christ's love for us. It isn't until the cake isn't physically capable of holding any more jello that it is finally able to overflow and create a lake of jello. It isn't until we have been filled to the fullest with Christ's love that we are finally able to pour out love on other people. We can't serve unless we completely filled by Christ. When we give out of ourselves when we haven't been filled fully with Christ's love, we are going to be giving what we aren't supposed to give; we are going to to be giving ourselves, not giving Christ's love. And when we give of our self, and not of the overflowing love of Christ, nothing we do will last, because nothing we have to offer that lacks Christ's love is going to be able to accomplish anything. But all we have to do to be completely filled is to receive. God doesn't run out of jello for His jello cakes. He will fill us until we are completely overflowing with His love, and when we are overflowing, then we are able to pour into others the way He intended.

Burnout doesn't come from us giving too much; it comes from when we try to give something that we don't have.

That's what Young Life is all about. Being filled by the love of Christ until we are overflowing, in order that we may pour Christ's love into the kids in our community. And we do this so that all adolescents will come to know and follow Christ. The next time you make a jello cake, make sure that you have enough jello to create a lake with the overflow; its just better that way.




By Bethany Hutson