I tell you what…. There are very few things that compare to the glorious smell of homemade bread baking in the oven. It makes a house smell like a happy home. Over Christmas break, I rolled up my sleeves, kneaded a lot of dough, and experienced how delicious and delightful it is to bake fresh bread for my family. As I consider all that 2025 holds I have resolved to make more bread. Does that sound silly? Probably! Let me explain….
It has very little to do with the literal baking of bread and everything to do with the idea and essence behind baking bread.
My favorite homemade bread recipe is a 4-hour commitment. It is an incredible oatmeal wheat bread. The entire 4 hours isn’t spent with my hands in dough. It is also a process that requires planning. First, soak the oats in a hot milk and butter mixture. Let it sit. Next, combine all the ingredients and knead the dough. Let it rise. Then, punch down the dough, shape it into loaves and let it rise again. Then, bake it. It requires patience, discipline, and focus. I have to be aware and intentional. And gosh, I love that. I love that I can’t take shortcuts and expedite things. Baking bread is teaching me a new pace to life.
If I am baking bread in my kitchen, I am choosing a pace to life that is measured, intentional, delightful and frankly, delicious. I’m choosing to fly in the face of convenience and instant gratification to choose a slower way of living. I feel a strong urgency toward simple. To less being so much more than I ever dreamed it could be. I feel beckoned into quiet and margin.
As I let the yeast prove, and wait while the bread rises, and wait again as it rises again, I am choosing a different pace to life. I am choosing measured living. When the timer finally goes off, and I remove the golden brown loaf – giving it a tap to hear the hollow response – I know I am giving myself my very best. I am giving myself the gift of a slow down. Not only that, it means my family and my inner circle are also getting my very best. The overwhelmed, overworked, multiple-competing-priorities version of me is not my best version.
The homemade bread version of me is a much better version!
This is a hard-fought reality for me though. I haven’t always been good about living at a measured pace. In the recent past, life has required an unhealthy amount of multi-tasking. For example, In 2023 I was working full time while in the final stages of earning my master’s degree and simultaneously finalizing my book, publishing it, and traveling to promote it. That wasn’t healthy. It was too much, all at once. In that season there was NO freshly bread in the Scaggs’ household.
I don’t regret insane seasons, especially not 2023, because it was just a season of intense overlapping priorities. I’m also profoundly grateful for a book contract and the ability to be traditionally published – I will not look upon that gift with anything but thanks. And yet, in this new season, I get to choose that it will be different. I get to choose to bake bread from scratch.
If you are part of my inner circle (Tom, I know you are a faithful reader, I’m counting on you here!) – or simply are willing to be a source of accountability – I hope you’ll check in within a few months and ask me if I’ve baked any bread lately. My intent is to be able to respond with a hearty and relaxed – yes.