Be the Chocolate Chip. Jen Sr. Brewer

      In 1930, Ruth Wakefield and her husband owned an inn outside of Wakefield, Massachusetts. Built in 1709, the old house was used as a rest stop for travelers to change their horses, pay their tolls, and get something to eat, earning it the name “The Toll House Inn.” The Wakefields kept the tradition of providing travelers with rest and good food through the Great Depression.

      Ruth Wakefield was well known for her baking, and often made Butter Drop Do Cookies. Her recipe required baker’s chocolate, which melted completely, producing a chocolate cookie. One day in 1937, as she began making the cookies, she realized she was out of baker’s chocolate, but happened to have a nestle semi-sweet chocolate bar on hand. She chopped it into chunks and put it in the batter, expecting it to disappear and melt into the cookie, producing the familiar chocolate cookie for which she had grown famous.

      To her surprise, the chocolate chunks did not disappear, but held their individual shape, producing a creamy texture and a fabulous new taste for the entire cookie.

      These new cookies became incredibly popular. Nestle^® bought the rights to the recipe, and in 1939 introduced Nestle Toll House Real Semi Sweet Chocolate Morsels^®. The traditional “Chocolate Chip Cookie” was born!

      The most popular cookie of all time came about all because a bit of chocolate held its ground and didn’t melt when the heat was on.

      You, too, can be the chocolate chip. Satan knows your potential. He is constantly trying to mix you into the world and get you to lose your individual worth. Satan knows how to turn up the heat. He thinks that if he does his job well you will melt under the pressure, get lost in the crowd, and lose your understanding of who you really are: a child of God.

      He will try to make you think that you can only feel good about yourself if you become part of the world and do what “everyone else” is doing. But you can be like the wonderful chocolate chip. Christ talks about you in Doctrine & Covenants 132:16: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

      You can be the chocolate chip. You can choose to be ‘in the cookie, but not of the cookie.’ Just as the chocolate chip made the cookie better by retaining its true nature, you can make the world better by retaining your true nature as a follower of Christ. You don’t have to be something or someone else. You don’t have to melt into the crowd; you can be the chocolate chip! You will get noticed for being different. You will stand out. That is what makes all the difference, and is what makes a chocolate chip cookie so great. What good would it be without the chocolate chips? Be you. Be different. Be better.

      Be the chocolate chip!