What a Wedding Cake Showed Me About Spiritual Drift

by: Jenna Schutt Part of The Abundant Faith Team

My brother got married just a couple of weeks ago, and I had the privilege of standing beside him as his Best Woman.

My brother and I have been close since I was little, so standing beside him on his wedding day would have been meaningful no matter what. But this day carried another layer for me.

My brother is also my stem cell transplant donor.

There were seasons of my life when we didn’t know what the future would look like, so standing beside the brother who quite literally gave me his stem cells while he married the woman he loves was something I did not take lightly.

And because being Best Woman wasn’t quite enough responsibility, I also agreed to make and decorate their wedding cake.

There was just one small challenge.

Because of dietary restrictions in our family, I needed to make a wedding cake that was gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, and tree-nut-free.

Basically, I needed to make a cake without most of the things you normally put in a cake.

And I didn’t want it to merely be something everyone could eat. I wanted it to taste and look like a normal wedding cake. I wanted someone to take a bite and never know what was missing.

When it came time to decorate it, I wanted the frosting to be a beautiful, stark wedding white.

As I worked, I thought I was doing a pretty good job.

It looked white to me. Then I made a fresh batch of frosting.

The moment I placed the new frosting directly beside what was already on the cake, I saw it. One was white. The other was definitely off-white. When I placed it beside the standard I was trying to match, the difference suddenly became obvious.

And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.

Sometimes we don’t recognize how far something has drifted until we place it directly beside the standard it was meant to follow.

That can happen spiritually too.

Most of us don’t wake up one morning and consciously decide, I think I’m going to drift away from the Lord today.

It happens little by little.

• Schedules fill up.

• School begins again.

• Sports start.

• Church activities pick up.

• Work becomes demanding.

• The holidays begin appearing on the calendar.

We are still going to church. We still believe in God. Maybe we still read a verse here and there or whisper a prayer on the way out the door.

Nothing looks obviously wrong.

But are we still as close to Him as we think we are?

Psalm 119:105 says,

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Without His light guiding us, we can become accustomed to almost anything.

• A little compromise begins to feel normal.

• A little bitterness becomes understandable.

• Prayer becomes occasional.

• Time in Scripture gets replaced by everything else demanding our attention.

• Our passion for the Lord cools

And because it happened gradually, we hardly notice, and just like that wedding cake frosting: off-white starts looking white.

James 1 compares the Word of God to a mirror.

23 For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror;

24 For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like.

A mirror doesn’t condemn us because our hair is out of place. It simply allows us to see what we could not see without looking.

That is one of the beautiful things about regularly returning to Scripture.

The Word shows us where we are. Not where we:

• assume we are.

• were five years ago.

• the person next to us is.

Where we are today.

Fall naturally feels like a season of resetting. New school schedules begin. Ministries start back up. Calendars change. We pull out sweaters, change the decorations, organize our homes, and prepare for a different rhythm.

What if we used this season for a spiritual reset, too?

Psalm 139:23–24 says,

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

That is a brave prayer, because it asks the Lord to show us what we’re not seeing.

Have we become comfortable with something the Lord never intended?

Am I still:

• hungry for Your Word?

• quick to pray?

• sensitive when the Holy Spirit corrects me?

• on fire for You?

Or have I slowly drifted while convincing myself that everything is fine?

This isn’t about earning righteousness by becoming spiritually perfect. Jesus is the One who makes us righteous. It is about allowing Him to search us, correct us, and continually draw us closer.

Sometimes we simply need to put our “ spiritual white” beside His.

We need to place our thinking beside His Word. Our priorities, attitudes, and spiritual habits right beside His Word.

And when we notice an area that has become a little more off-white than we realized, we don’t have to hide it. We can bring it right back to Him.

So as the leaves begin changing and another busy season begins, take a moment before adding one more thing to your schedule.

Open your Bible.

Sit with the Lord.

And pray the prayer of Psalm 139:

• Search me, Lord.

• Show me, Lord.

• Lead me, Lord.

  Jenna Schutt is an author, speaker, former cardiac RN, rare disease survivor, and stem cell transplant survivor. Through The Joy Reflex™, she helps Christians train their hearts and minds through biblically based resources, renew their thinking with Scripture, and build a steady, faith-filled response to fear, uncertainty, and hard seasons.

  A wife and homeschool mom of two, Jenna brings personal experience, practical teaching, and biblical encouragement to her writing and speaking. Her message centers on helping others make faith the foundation, not the fallback, so that faith becomes their first response rather than their last resort.

  Learn more and find free resources at  jennaschutt.com.