Our Prussian Grandma Minnie said their people tend to live off of nature, and are very frugal. At the end of the week rolled dough was a good way to fancy up bits of whatever was left over and she often chopped or ground it up and spread on a thin dough, sometimes served with gravy. Her rolled dough held jelly for breakfast, ground meats for savory breads and my favorite, the sweetened fillings of walnuts or poppy-seeds I still make on purpose J

The filled bread’s original name, Potica, meant rolled up. The next generation nicknamed it Roly-Poly because to feed her family of 16, Grandma’s original recipe produced two huge long roly-poly (chubby) rolls equal to six loaves of bread! The traditional bread took much of the day to mix, knead, rise and roll out before baking. Lots of time to pray and to thank God for the abundance from left-over bits, Grandma said.

Philippians 4:9 – What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you

Grandma taught by example much as the disciples did and her next generations continued abundance appreciation by making weekend baked potatoes topped with the weeks meal remnants, saving all our change for an ice cream date, and appreciating a long wait anywhere as a prayer opportunity.

Wait a minute – what was that last one? Grandma’s bread baking taught me that having to wait is an unexpected form of abundance! If we have to wait for too-much time for a light to change, the person ahead of us to make up their mind, a machine to work so we can complete our transaction, and so on, we’ve been given a gift! Next time it happens, look up and look around you and see who is next to you, in front or behind you and pray they will appreciate all the abundances in their lives, or ask God how we can cheerfully show patience as we wait for the fruit of our endeavors to come to fruition. That process is similar to Grandma’s baking routine:

Mix – Accept all the ingredients in our life right now as God’s recipe for growth

Knead – Work those life ingredients together with a prayer of patience, and hope

Rise – patiently ask God to show you how to turn what you have into an abundance

Roll – use what you have to create something new

Then thank God for the heat of your situation and ask what have I learned from it?

Practice that outcome with others — it is, after all, what you and God have created

What have I learned and received that I can put into practice today?

Recipe for Walnut-Raisin filling.

We called it RolyPoly:)