A Cake for Freedom

“It is a trap to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider one’s vows.” Proverbs 20:25

        When I was a child, I grew up in a home where silences were louder than arguments. The kind of silence that filled the room like fog. Thick, oppressive, and impossible to ignore. Words were rare, but the air pulsed with tension. Disappointment lingered like heat on the skin in the tropical country I called home.

It wasn’t just the climate that was stifling.

        It was the closed doors, the unspoken shame, the invisible weight of expectations. In that house, children became emotional barometers, adjusting ourselves, shrinking, performing. Trying to hold together a peace we never broke and could never keep.

        I was raised not with open arms, but with burdens disguised as duty. With love that always felt like something I had to earn. And somewhere in that silence, I made a secret vow.

A child’s vow.

That one day, I would fix this.

        That I would do what the grown-ups could not do. I would marry someone who truly loved me, and I would love him back with everything I had. I would create the kind of home I never had. I would become the best wife any man could dream of. Faithful, kind, selfless and sacrificial. And for nearly two decades, I kept that vow. Because I thought breaking it would mean I had failed myself.  These childhood vows often made in fear, in powerlessness, do become chains in adulthood. They sound noble. But they’re forged in terror. 

They are not covenants of love. They are contracts with fear. I confused control with love, because it felt familiar.

So, when he gave me even scraps of affection, that vow kicked in:

“See? He loves me. Now I must work to keep it.”

And yet, that vow saved me once. It gave me a sense of purpose when I was small and powerless. But not anymore.

The song playing in my head, and now in my soul, is this:

“I’m no longer a slave to fear… I am a child of God…
I am surrounded by the arms of the Father.
I am surrounded by songs of deliverance.”
— No Longer Slaves, Bethel Music

That melody unravelled something inside me.

I am surrounded by the arms of the Father.

That’s the deepest longing in every human heart. 

To belong. To be safe. To have a family. To have a Father.

And some of us have bent over backwards to earn what God has already given. But now that I’ve run into the arms of my Heavenly Father and tasted what it truly means to belong. Now, I am left with a question:

What do I do with the vows that still bind me?

Jesus answered that question long before I even asked it:

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free… So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:32, 36)

So, this year, I baked a cake.

A Tres Leches cake. A three-milk cake.

A cake for freedom.

Let me explain.

            Eighteen years ago, in the early days of my marriage, my mother-in-law called me on my birthday. I was newly married, already quietly breaking, and told her, maybe too honestly that her son hadn’t even remembered my birthday. No cake. No card.  Her response?

“If you don’t bake the cake, how will your family eat cake?”

I cringed. And I baked.

Year after year, I baked the cake. For my husband. For my children. For myself.

I planned. I decorated. I celebrated.

Even when my own birthday went unmentioned.

At home, my cake became an unspoken obligation.

But I baked.

I wasn’t just baking desserts.

I was clinging to hope.

I was building something beautiful amid the ruins.

I was showing my boys that joy is not something we wait for, it’s something we create.

        Two years ago, something shifted. My older son baked his first cake. He baked it for my birthday. That moment healed something deep inside me. The joy was shared. The act was no longer mine alone. It had become ours. The baton had passed. And through that simple, sacred act, I had broken the lie.

        Not all legacies are worth building. 

The revelation threatens to unravel the fabric of my family. But what if the fabric is woven with a thread of lies? My mother-in-law passed down a message of duty and servitude. But I passed down hope. Freedom. Truth. Joy without performance. Turns out, the cake wasn’t just food.

It was resistance.
It was memory.
It was legacy.

            I’ve untangled so many lies in these last years. Lies that told me that, submission meant silence. That asking for kindness made me a rebel. That to want love without fear was to ask too much.  

But Jesus doesn’t control me. He invites me. He loves me freely. He gives me free will. He gives me dignity. That has been the most shocking truth of all. Because once I tasted the freedom Christ died to give me, I finally understood that what I longed for from my family could only truly be found in Him.

I do not follow Christ to become a feminist. I follow Him because He is the only one who set me free.

I may still love my family.But I will not be a slave to their sin.

Christ redeemed me, not to fit in, but to be set apart.

So, this year’s cake was different.

It wasn’t baked in duty. It wasn’t an offering to silence or survival. This was a cake for freedom.

And when I sliced it, I celebrated a truth that took me years to understand, I may belong to a family. But I am no longer a slave to its sin.  

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.Now a slave has no permanent place in the family,but a son belongs to it forever. So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34–36)

            Freedom doesn’t always seem as distinct as people expect it to be. Sometimes, it looks like a quiet cake on a messy kitchen counter. Sometimes, it looks like laughing with your sons amid the chaos.Sometimes, it looks like reclaiming a tradition, not to survive, but to celebrate.This year, I didn’t bake to prove anything.I baked because joy still lives here. Because Jesus sustains me and my boys, even when the world around us doesn’t make sense.This wasn’t about a marriage.It wasn’t even about a man. This was about meaning.About reclaiming beauty. And the frosting?

It doesn’t hide sorrow anymore. It crowns truth. Joy. Freedom.

I’ll keep baking. But now, I bake from love. Not fear.

Because I’m no longer a slave.

I am a child of God.