Fall is my favorite season, but there are many things in every seasons that I enjoy. What is your favorite season of the year? Do you normally embrace that season, your favorite, regardless of the storm in your personal life? There are a bazillion seasons of life we can either embrace or relinquish, reject, or denounce. I don’t know of a more difficult area to embrace than a tough season of life. When something is horridly painful, how can we embrace it as if it were a good thing of which to hold tightly? Not to be sacrilegious by changing God’s Word, but temporarily substitute the word trees with the…
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Spaghetti Zucchini Boats
I hope you are enjoying some cooler weather this week, as we are – finally! October is one of my favorite months. Crops have been harvested, and the fields surrounding our house are a clean slate, so to speak. Harvest time is so fun with all the new choices of pumpkins and gourds. Such fun shapes and colors. I’ve been a little zucchini crazy lately. It is more plentiful at my local grocer these days, so that prompts me to have it as a regular. After reading the 12 Health and Nutrition Benefits of Zucchini, how can we not include it in healthy eating as a regular? Dani Spies at…
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God Names Us As The Thing Before He Equips Us For And Transforms Us Into That Thing
Does God tickle you in the way He works sometimes? I swanee (clearly a southern term, y’all), how I enjoy His sense of humor! When God places a certain verse in front of you time and time again, all in different settings, from separate sources, within the time frame of only a couple of days, whether in a tough season or a triumphant one, sometimes I want to say, OK, God. I got it! 🙂 I’ve been reviewing Annie Downs’ book, 100 Days to Brave, a second time and read this verse again recently regarding Gideon. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord…
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As a Christian, Why Can I Not Handle This Better?
In the hardest season of my entire life (our prodigal season), I was a total mess. In that test of faith, I failed. If I could go back to that time, of course I would handle it differently now – on this side of God’s beautifully-crafted miracle. Hindsight gives us 20/20 vision. Right? While I struggled to not cry through each day for months and months, I wondered, I’m a Christian. Why can I not handle this better? Have you ever thought this same thing? If not, possibly you can at least relate. Of course we are hurting during tough seasons like that, but I learned a lot from my…
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The Unacknowledged YESes
In your current season, do you feel you are stuck in a pattern of hearing no from God? No to this, no to that. Does no seem to be His only answer lately? Are you having a pity-party over that? Or, maybe you have a huge, over-arching longing to which you hear a continual no. Or at least no, not yet. No, your prodigal hasn’t returned. No, your illness hasn’t vanished. No, your marriage isn’t mended. No, your finances are still nothing but a mess. Either way, many of us may be experiencing a constant stream of noes in our lives right now, and the Lord wants to change our perspective.…
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Healthy Breakfasts – Ketchup on Eggs Not Included!
“The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.” Exodus 16:31 When my brother was a kid, he loved the idea of ketchup and eggs! My uncle introduced it to him, and he was enamored. It wasn’t a thing for me, so I didn’t even try it. Never really hungry at breakfast, I rarely bothered to eat more than a bite of something quick (and not nutritious). That is, until a couple of years ago when I began a health journey with Trim Healthy Mama’s food freedom. By the way, this is the cheapest I have ever…
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Delightful Veggie Fritters
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 Last month, I joined my long-time Christian women Facebook friends who formed a group for supporting others (and one another) in their quest for better health, fitness, weight-loss, or whatever their goals may be, health-wise, and also for fun and fellowship. Isn’t it always easier to do the hard things when we have our friends along? While I don’t follow a “diet plan”, I strive to feed my body what it needs for the most healing benefits (for MS and lung cancer). The weight-loss goals of most women are understandable. It can be such…
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Sit With Your Friend
In a season of change (possibly a very tough season), your friend needs you. She may need you to sit with her, to maybe even cry with her. She may not ask for it. She may not even know she needs it. But it will be balm to her. Your friend doesn’t need you to discount her need to accept the change – that letting go. Don’t say, “Oh, well … that’s in the past.” Or don’t say, “Here today, gone tomorrow!” No. She needs time to sit and soak and grieve and cry and say good-bye to what was. The former things are sometimes hard to let go of…
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Online Courses Set Free
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.” Matthew 25:14-15 In my last post (A Season of Letting Go), I explained this summer season as a time of letting go. Part of that process of getting most old things out of sight and out of mind is with finding ways to put those things to bed, so to speak. To let them rest but with a productive end. Yes, Goodwill or Salvation Army stores are…
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A Season of Letting Go
I’m sure you’ve seen this verse before, but God brought it back to me last week when thinking of how to explain part of what’s been going on in my teensy corner of the world this summer. . . . But forget all that – it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19) . . . God has blessed us with many things, and sometimes He is ready to do a…
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Sugar-Free Blueberry Jam/Syrup
“How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103 As I pinkie promised yesterday when sharing my Buckwheat “Buttermilk” Waffles, today you see how to make this quick and healthy (and sugar-free) fruit jam. Well, I like a jam anyway. You can also make it more runny to eat as a syrup. The sweetness of this jam/syrup is largely from the peaches. Peaches? Yes! Blueberries for sure as the main fruit. And a few peach slices are added for a tad more sweet and creamy-ness. When peaches and blueberries aren’t in season, simply use the frozen variety. Easy to find organic frozen…
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Buckwheat “Buttermilk” Waffles, Gluten- and Dairy-Free
“Your beauty … should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:3-4 NIV I love food that has a crunch when you bight into it. Crackers, chips, nearly-burnt toast, and waffles with a bit of crisp texture. Yes, soft inside, but crunchy on the outside. I was hankering for a batch of crispy waffles enough to finally bite the bullet and make a batch by adapting Mom’s recipe for oat pancakes. My kids always love her “cake-cakes” and still call them that. Sweet memories! Buckwheat grouts offer a wonderful gluten-free flour when…
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The Appointment in Your Disappointment
As you know from this post, I’m becoming more brave through looking at certain scriptures that Annie Downs brings to my attention each day in her 100 Days to Brave* book. On day twenty, we took a peak into Gideon’s bravery (and lack of his courage in the early days), and I couldn’t stop reading. I studied Gideon with Priscilla Shirer about six years ago when I was headed into the toughest season of my life, but I didn’t yet know what was ahead. While in the Gideon study, I had an inkling that God was preparing me for something. I prayed He wouldn’t call me into anything unbearably hard. …
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Pan-Grilled Salmon and White Bean Salad
“Show me Your ways, Lord, teach me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long.” Psalm 25;4-5 NIV This is my close version of a recipe a high-school friend cooked for us on our girl’s trip in May. It is very light and refreshing – and deliciously healthy. My friend offered a choice of chicken or salmon. I didn’t actually taste her salmon, but I’m sure it was as tasty as the chicken. Neither did I pay attention to her process for cooking either of the meat options. Honestly, you can’t ruin this…
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Things That Go Bump In The Night
Can you hear it? You know, the thoughts, fears, and worries that awaken you at night. The fear that looms so large you can’t go back to sleep. That one concern on your mind seems so much worse in the dark. It grows larger and larger by the minute. And, then it goes bump. (If nothing else, the bump is in your imagination.) The bump gives way to continual chewing on the doubts and fears. Examining them. Stewing over them. And you wish you could turn it off and stop thinking about it! When we were young, it was monsters in the dark that scared us. Now it’s our thoughts…
