I love doughuts. But I probably wouldn’t love them as much if they didn’t have holes in the middle. Or else they’d look like a cupcake or just a piece of bread to me.
Though popular doughut stores now have jam-filled donuts as variation, I will still look for the doughuts with holes. There’s something in the holes that make you want to bite them right away!
So what’s the big deal about doughuts having holes? Is it because the baker thought his creations were so delicious that he decided to take a bite out of the middle of each one?
But legend has it that the inventor of the ring, an old New England Sea captain, one Hanson Gregory liked to tell his story many times–how as a boy he had been watching his mother frying doughnuts and had noticed that the centers always remained partially uncooked and doughy. ‘Mother’, he said, “leave a hole in the center.” Laughingly, she obliged him and never went back to the old way. Her method was widely copied since then.
I researched about Hanson and learned that in Rockport, Maine, you can find a plaque inscribed with the following: “In commemmoration. This is the birthplace of Captain Hanson Gregory, who first invented the hole in the doughnut in 1847.“
The hole makes the doughnut unique. And this uniqueness came about after people tasted a partially uncooked dough and were dissatisfied.
With this said, I guess I am a doughnut.
I have been punched in the middle many times with holes — missteps, mess-ups, misunderstandings, anger and hurt. Sometimes, the holes were cut so deep that I didn’t feel good anymore about myself and my life.
But just like Hanson who disliked the uncooked dough, I realized that these holes made me a better person as I learned from my mistakes, frustrations and bad decisions. The holes made me a unique person , not perfect, but capable now of loving and being loved.
“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” (Jodi Picoult,My Sister’s Keeper)
I know some people may have not understood me before but because the holes in my life taught be how to be understood better, I believe in my heart I am more beautiful inside and wiser now.
When you’re willing to be “holed” , you are actually telling people to look clearly in your soul more than just see how a raw and uncooked dough you are to them.
To the people who truly loves you, they are not blind to our shortcomings. They have continued to accept you because your are beautiful despite the holes. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too.
God has accepted our imperfections. The very person He created sinned against him, remember? “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)
Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Jacob was a liar, Moses stuttered, Samson had long hair and was a womanizer, was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David was an adulterer and a murderer, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, Peter denied Christ,the disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha worried about everything.
These Biblical personalities had holes. Yet God used these holes for good.
God can use someone like you or me! God can use all things for good as long as we love Him and continue to believe in Him. He can work things unto good for us.
This is the prayer I hold in my heart recently, that something good will happen despite the challenges I am facing in the family right now.
I may just taste the uncooked dough now in my mouth, and I have many why’s in my mind right now. But I believe in faith that God will turn me and my family into the persons He will be most pleased through the holes He has punched on us.
“Be perfect as God as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) So, the Lord does want us to strive for perfection, to live in a holy way, but He also knows that our present world may make this hard to do.
But St. Paul assures us that with God, we can do all things.He lived through many holes as a preacher for God, but He knows what it is to experience God’s grace and survive all odds.
So the next time you buy that doughnut, look at the hole. That’s hope! Be thankful for the holes you have now in life. In the same way that the hole makes the doughnut perfectly cooked , the struggles we have now, our imperfections and weaknesses will make us achieve the perfection that God expects from us.
Just stay with God.