The Chef Who Forgot Their Records

In 2015, Dallas chef Chad Houser opened Cafe Momentum, a restaurant staffed almost entirely by teenagers coming out of juvenile detention. Most of these kids had never had an adult keep a single promise to them. On their first day, many refused to make eye contact. They expected to be discarded the moment they failed.

Houser did something radical. He never asked about their charges. He handed them an apron and said, "Let me show you what your hands can do." He taught them to brunoise onions, to plate a dish with intention, to greet a stranger with dignity. When they burned the roux or dropped a tray — and they did, often — he simply said, "Again. I am not going anywhere."

One young man, who had spent three years locked up, later told a reporter, "Chef never brought up who I was before. He only ever talked about who I was becoming."

This is the heart of Psalm 25. David, carrying the full weight of his failures, dares to pray, "Remember not the sins of my youth." And the Almighty answers not with a lecture but with a path forward — "He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way." God does not demand that we arrive cleaned up. He hands us the apron. He teaches our hands. And His steadfast love, like Houser standing at that kitchen pass night after night, simply refuses to leave.