I have always loved everything kitchen related. I’d rather shop at Bed Bath and Beyond rather than Belk. I went to college to be a teacher but I’ve always wanted the job as a waitress or the job in the kitchen. I just didn’t fully realize my destiny until I took a job in Surrey, England in 2002.

It was a teaching position that gave me the opportunity to explore another culture, and it was in the little village of Lightwater and Knaphill that I fell in love. History came alive to me!
I was walking slower and admiring the beauty of the architecture, cobblestone roads and I was taking pictures of the roofs on homes because they were so adorable! Who does that???

Those little villages had the cutest cafés and bakeries and every experience in one of them would create a stronger burning of curiosity, awe, and wonder. I was a fantastic teacher, but my gift, my destiny was about to be brought to the surface, out in the open and set me on a path I could never have imagined in a 1000 years!

That trip led me to create Sweet Biscuit 14 years later! The gifts that we possess are not things we have worked for or earned by our good merits. Our gifts and talents are birthed in us by our creator and they are meant to be used as a blessing to others, right in the place where we are!
So as Sweet Biscuit is a bakery in our community of Mount Juliet, it is a product of the gift and talent of baking that was placed in me. It just took traveling to another country for me to fully realize this! When my staff is thin, or customers are not pouring in, I can get a little distracted and discouraged into thinking I’m failing or I’m not working hard enough. But then I remember I’m not really the owner of Sweet Biscuit! I’m simply the manager.

My gifts of baking and cooking were given to me, so on paper, it may have my name as owner, but in reality, I am the manager and God is the owner, as He is the one who placed these gifts and abilities in me. When I remind myself of the gift of stewardship, it removes the demand from me that ownership requires and it replaces that feeling with joy, inspiration, and relief. The gift of stewardship now makes room in my heart for that childlike awe and wonder I used to feel on those British cobblestone streets, passing by the cutest cottages and their thatched roofs made of straw. The gift of stewardship gently reminds me to hold loosely to those things that I feel only belong to me. Gifts are meant to be shared! With open hands and open hearts! May you find you wonder in the unique gifts that only you possess! 

Bake on!
Shannon