Things that are and are not cake

Do you love cake?  Silly question, everyone loves cake!  Cake is delicious!  So I'm sure we would all love a world with even more cake in it.  Unfortunately some people love cake just a little too much.  So much in fact that they start seeing things as cake when they're not, kind of like a hungry cartoon character.  Seeing cake where there isn't cake can lead to someone saying making very stupid statements!  So as someone who loves cake but hates stupid statements I'm offering this brief guide to things that are and are not cake.  I hope this helps.

This is a chocolate cake.  Chocolate cake contains cake ingredients (which can differ a lot, trust me) and is almost always delicious.  Chocolate cake is most certainly cake.  Take a moment to look at the cake just to remind yourself what cake is.  OK, now to things that are not cake.

Marriage on the other hand is NOT cake.  I know, it should be obvious but believe me there seems to be some confusion.  Some folks out there are objecting to same sex marriage and claiming it will destroy traditional marriage.  These folks are obviously confusing marriage with cake.  If you have cake and you let someone else have cake then there will be less cake for you.  They may be so hungry that they take it all and then there is no cake left for you.  Marriage is not like that.  You can let other people have all the marriage they want and there will still be marriage left over for you and your children and your children's children!  Marriage, unlike cake, does not run out when you share it.  You can have your delicious marriage and so can everyone else!

Hearts are also not cake.  This can get confusing because you do get heart shaped cakes, I get that.  However the human heart is not cake.  They say you are what you eat but I don't think they mean that literally, so even on an all cake diet your heart will never become cake.  I see many Christian dating advice columns telling young girls not to "give pieces of their heart away" because that will prevent them from committing to their future spouses with their whole hearts.  Clearly this advice is not based on how hearts actually work but was mistakenly based on how cake works.  Cake has pieces and if you give someone a piece you never get it back.  (And if you do then eeuww! )  Hearts are not like this at all!  You can give someone your heart and they can break it into a million pieces and yet somehow you will manage to give that same heart to someone else and it can be amazing like the previous heartbreak(s) never even happened.  Hearts can be healed, cakes cannot.

Love is also not cake.  Cake is finite.  If you give someone most of the cake there is very little cake left to give to someone else.  But not love.  You'd be surprised how much love you can give and still have love left over.  But perhaps the good folks who write these Christian advice columns for young ladies do not have children.  Or parents.  If they did they may have noticed that someone can give one person a LOT of love and still give a LOT of love left over for all their other children, their significant other and pets and even other people outside of the family!  Love can mysteriously be almost bottomless.  Cake, not so much.  I won't lie though, bottomless cake sounds fantastic though!

People are also not like cake.  If you let people partake of your cake then that cake will never be whole again.  People in the Purity Culture seem to think that people are like cake in this way.  That is why they tell young men and women make sure they save the entire cake for someone special otherwise their someone special will not enjoy the cake.  Sadly that may even be true for some people but really it's a giant misunderstanding.  People are not cake!  If you share yourself with someone you will not be less of a person.  There won't be anything missing from you.  You will not be in any way "ruined".  That is how cakes work, but people are not cakes.  I can't stress this enough.

Overdosing on cake can be hilarious though!  Go read Allie's cake story here

Some things are like cake though even though (strictly speaking) they are not cake.  Power for instance.  Power is like cake.  If you let someone else have some of your power then there really will be less of it for you.  Privilege is also like cake.  If you used to have a lot and then someone else takes a piece then your privilege may seem less delicious.  But guys, too much cake is bad for you, no joke.  If you have all the cake all the time you will get bloated and sick and people won't want to be around you.  What is true for cake is also true for things that are like cake, believe it or not!  Having all the power and all the privilege all the time is also very bad for you.  You won't think so because it's also delicious so you will just want more and more but don't do it!  You're better off not having it all.  You are also better off sharing it.  Power and privilege is just like cake in that way too.  If you share it, there will be less for you but people will like you more.

And now if you'll excuse me I'm in the mood for delicious cake!