...By any other name

Well, another recipe disaster.
Now when Emeril made the corn pudding it looked so good. Kind of like the sauce you made for homemade Mac and cheese but using corn. Besides it was called pudding so it had to be good.
Not to worry that I missed the first part. I got the recipe off the website and today was the day. I did note as I was making it that it called for fresh white corn cut off the cob but canned corn, yellow though it was would be OK.
I served it with BBQ chicken and broccoli and bread sticks. What's not to love???
Funny that you should ask. The 'pudding' turned out to be just like creamed corn which we both hate. UGH! Good thing I only made 1/2 the recipe.
That same recipe has now been torn into tiny pieces and put in the trash as Jon supervised. At least we were agreed on this one.
Funny how something by another name sounded so good.
Kind of like, ' alternative lifestyle' sounds better than sex outside of marriage.
Or abortion sounds better than killing your baby.
Or white lie sounds better than flat out lying through your teeth.
So beware. It may have a different name but it is still the same.

The presentation

Jon has been watching too much Food Network TV. How do I know? Let me tell you what happened last night.
Since Jon was told he had high Triglycerides, we have been working on a Mediterranean diet. That includes more veggies and beans which you may remember up until this time I have hated. That has also meant many new recipes, some from the Food Network.
Another factor in this story is that Jon has been sick all week with bronchitis and, well, slightly grumpy.
Yesterday we had a new recipe but it was simply familiar items in a new form. It included celery, onion and Granny Smith apple browned. Added to that was cooked brown rice and cooked chicken. It was served together with chopped walnuts on top. The bread was our favorite potato and rosemary French bread.
When I put it on the table, Jon said
" The presentation is not very good!".
I just laughed and said, but it contains things you like and are good for you, so just eat it. To myself, I thought, where did he get the word or even think about the 'presentation'? I knew right away- TV.
Thinking about all this while I cleaned up the kitchen mess,I thought about how some people feel that way when they are presented the good news about Christ. The message is life changing but it is the presentation that turns them off. Too bad for it keeps them away from God even as he longs pour put his love on them.
So maybe the message is that presentation is more important then I thought, both in meal planning and in sharing my faith.

Friends

Solomon said :
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
In other words, when your friend rubs against your life he, or she, knocks off the sharp edges.
So the question is, are your friends just admirers or true friends whom you have invited into your life to both exhort and encourage ? If all your friends think you are wonderful they aren't true friends, simply admirers.
Question to ask youreslf:
Do my friends tell me only what I want to hear, or what I need to hear?

Taxes

I have a dear friend who had shock yesterday. Her tax bill so much more than she could have imagined. I still wonder if there is an error? But I know that it can happen. My friend Phyllis faces this most years with such a faith that it never fails to bless me. She just knows that God will provide, somehow.
That reminded me of the story of King Hezekiah. Like my friend, he was facing insurmountable problems. He was surrounded by an enemy king and there was no way of escape. The king sent a letter with his messenger saying, Do not think that the god you depend on is truthful when he says that you will not be handed over to me. Surely you have heard of all the other kings I have conquered. Do you think that you will be delivered? No way.
Hezekiah knew that if it depended on him, the nation was is in big trouble. But he knew where to turn.
I love the next part of this:
He took the letter into the temple and spread it out before God.
" Give ear Lord and hear; open your eyes and see this letter. See how he insults you, the living God. It is true that he has laid waste these other nations. They had to throw their gods into the fire for they were no good.
Now, O God, deliver us from his hand so that all kingdoms of the earth may know hat you alone are God."
I told my friend to do the same thing. Take the tax bill to God and ask him to provide in ways she could not foresee as a testimony to the family around her. I challenged her to trust God and not be afraid. God is a faithful God.
Between now and 4-15-2006 I wait to see what God is going to do!

Mercy

Today I was thinking about mercy- not getting what you deserve. That is different from justice- getting what you deserve or grace, getting what you don't deserve. It plays out like this:
You get a speeding ticket. You appear in court.
Justice - you pay the $250.00 fee.
Mercy - The judge reduces the fee to $100.00!
Grace - The judge pays the fee himself.
I am thankful for God's mercy- not giving me what I deserve- eternity apart from Him
But even more I am thankful for His grace- Giving me what I don't deserve. He gives me the gift of spending eternity with HIM! I can't earn that. It is a free gift given to me by God because of Jesus paying my fee for sin.
I am so glad for a merciful,gracious God. There is not like HIM.

The hair cut

The trouble with hair is that you have to tend to it. I have never mastered the curling iron. When I tried I burned my forehead. The next time I got my hair caught and have to have Jon almost cut me out of it!
I tried coloring it but that was a disaster too. I got Jon and my grandson involved. What a fiasco.
So the last two years I have had my hair done every 4-5 weeks. I love letting Valerie do her magic. She makes it look so effortless!
Why this tale? Well something interrupted my schedule and there in lies the story. I was due to have my hair cut and colored this Friday. But my dear son in law is having surgery and I will be sitting with my daughter to pray and wait on the results. No big deal. I just changed my appointment for the following week.
But I woke last Thursday knowing I could not wait that long. So, knowing that my daughter was coming to have Valerie work her magic on Ruth's locks, I called to get in the same time. Ha! No such luck. Now I will have to wait until the following Saturday. Ugh!!
This morning I woke from a dream that all my hair had turned gray overnight and I would have to go that way for the next 6 days! Boy, is my mind busy when I sleep.
But the rest of the story is the point of all this.
Ruth's friend, better known as Princess Dawn ,was going to come with Ruth for moral support. She decided she wanted a hair cut while there. I told Ruth:
'Fat chance.'
But she prayed about it all week and she did get that hair cut.
James says:
You don't have because you don't ask.
How true.
I have never prayed about a hair cut appointment.
Yet Paul says
' Pray about everything.'
Thanks Princess for the lesson.

Complaining

The last couple of days I have had a constantly running nose. Do you know how much energy it takes just to blow and wipe your nose that much? I feel whinny and full of complaints. Why me, Lord? Why now? I had my flu shot , I wash my hands often and I don't go out much or eat junk food. This is not very cheery, to say the least.
Then I read this thought:
What things have I done this week to cheer God's heart? Have I consciously set out to bless him or just waited for Him to bless me?
That put a new spin on my grumpy feelings. So self- focused, as though life is about ME! Should I expect just good things to happen to my in my week? God does send rain on the 'just and unjust'. Today is my day, I guess.
So Lord, Master, let my new attitude bless you .
Let it rain, but could you dry it up soon?

The Lion

Last weekend we took a day trip to Vision Quest which is a wild animal preserve in the heart of Monterey county ( Salinas to be exact!). We were taken with all the wild things there but Josef, the Alpha lion, reached my heart. You can see him at wildthingsinc.com. I could have stayed there all day just watching him.
He has this amazing way of roaring to let the females where he is- kind of like 'Marco Polo', that water game. He roared with his whole body. I can't even describe it.
As I watched him ,I thought of Aslan in the Witch, the lion and the wardrobe, who stands for the Lion of Judah. I wanted to bury my face in his mane. I remember Mr. Beaver saying that of course Aslan was not tame, but he was good.
God is like that mighty lion. His roar is heard in every corner of the world , still when you are in trouble, you can run to him and bury your face in his mane. There you will find strength for your life.

Who bothers you?

There a people in my life that really bother me. On the list is my neighbor down the street who lets his two 'ankles biters' out on the street alone about the time I am walking my dog. UGH!
Then there are the people who never use their turn signals. Or if they do, they don't turn or turn the opposite way.
But lately the person who bother me most is me. I don't live up to my expectations of myself. Like today, I have a great list of things I needed to do, but never got 1/2 way done. I hate that. Now they have to go on the list for tomorrow . I tend to kick myself for that.
Then I read this quote that was all too true:
' Don't be angry that you can't make others as you wish them to be since you can't make yourself as you wish you would be.'
As I read this the Holy Spirit whispered to me:
" You don't have to be perfect. You don"t have to complete your list each day. I love you and your job each day is merely to spend time with me and love me back."
Wow- What freedom. Tomorrow looks better already.

Think about it

Thought for the day:
Which are you more apt to do-
1. Point fingers at others and blame them
2. Point it at yourself and deal with your failures
Enough said

Tests

I don't know about you, but I dislike tests- well to be honest I hate tests.
I never did well on achievement tests because I was a slow reader and never finished.
Then there is the DMV test. Don't get me started on that. I feel that they are out to get me and trip me up. The multiple choice test is too tricky- it depends on how you read it. True/false are even worse. I would much rather have essay questions because, as Debe well knows, if you write enough you are bound to hit what was wanted somehow or other.
It has always seemed to me that tests were designed to make me feel stupid at the very least. They reveal to the testor what I don't know thus making me vulnerable.
Today as I was reading in the Word, I came upon God's tests. They are way different.
First off, He already knows all there is to know about me. His test is to reveal things to me, not Him.
Second, He designs it so that I can pass. It is never more that I am able to bear up under.
Third He sends help at the time of the test, to encourage me. The Holy Spirit is called the HELPER.
So, the next time I realize God is testing me, I will relax and ask what He wants me to learn, not shudder in fear I will fail.

Jump right in

I am still thinking about the jump of faith you have to take to see that God is all He says He is. It is not blind faith since we can know who He is from the Bible. For example:
a - awesome
b Beautiful
c- comforter
d- dependable
e- eternal
f- Father
g Gracious
h Holy
I immutable( unchangeable)
Well you get the idea.
Also it depends what your faith is in. The Christian's faith is in Jesus, son of God, Savior.
The illustration that comes to my mind comes from when our girls were small. I took them to the public pool to swim. Deborah, ever our brave one, at age 3 climbed to the top of the slide and then did not want to go down. The other kids were mad, to say the least. Ruth had to go up and push her down to my waiting arms. She was not sure about the water, but she knew that I was there and would not let her drown. She could not trust herself, but she could trust me.
In the same way, we know we can't keep trusting ourselves forever since we let ourselves down too often. But the Bible helps us know that we can trust God when we jump into his arms. So give it a try- jump and he will be another E word- the everlasting arms underneath you.

Jump right in

I am still thinking about the jump of faith you have to take to see that God is all He says He is. It is not blind faith since we can know who He is from the Bible. For example:
a - awesome
b Beautiful
c- comforter
d- dependable
e- eternal
f- Father
g Gracious
h Holy
I immutable( unchangeable)
Well you get the idea.
Also it depends what your faith is in. The Christian's faith is in Jesus, son of God, Savior.
The illustration that comes to my mind comes from when our girls were small. I took them to the public pool to swim. Deborah, ever our brave one, at age 3 climbed to the top of the slide and then did not want to go down. The other kids were mad, to say the least. Ruth had to go up and push her down to my waiting arms. She was not sure about the water, but she knew that I was there and would not let her drown. She could not trust herself, but she could trust me.
In the same way, we know we can't keep trusting ourselves forever since we let ourselves down too often. But the Bible helps us know that we can trust God when we jump into his arms. So give it a try- jump and he will be another E word- the everlasting arms underneath you.

Pots

Jon and I belong to the garden club at church. We have done several things together as a group and we even have a blog about events. Our latest thing is a garden cart in the foyer of church where visitors can come and have a plant potted up while we visit with them and answer any questions. We needed many things to begin this project but one was critical, besides the plants- pots.
We decided to decorate the pots before we used them. So last Tuesday evening we had a group time for stenciling and 'fellowship'. Now Jon is very familiar with stenciling since he had a country craft business several years ago. But I am craft- challenged, to say the least. When we arrived, several were already busy stenciling and Jon got right busy. I circled the table, selected a pot and then circled again trying to decide on a stencil. Everyone else was busy and I was just walking around feeling intimidated. How to begin??? Well, I told myself, you have to have paint and a brush so I selected those items and added them to my pot and stencil. Then I circled the table again. Oh how I hated to begin; it was too scary. What if I goofed or my pot was ugly or less than perfect?
But I knew that the time had come and I just had to jump in. And so I began, my experiment with stenciling. Mine was probably not as creative as the others, but shock of shocks, I liked the project. It was fun. Why had I shied away for all these years? It did not take perfection, just a start.
And that is when it hit me that reaching out to God is a lot like that. We think about it, we circle around it, we gather a Bible, a church address and maybe even a Christian friend. But the time comes when we have to make a decision to begin. No one can do it for us. We must decide and follow through and we will find, just as I did with pot painting, that it is way more than we thought, more pleasant and more fulfilling.
So decide to begin. Reach out to God. He is reaching out to you.

Untamable

Have you ever thought about God being untamable? I hadn't until a song we sang this evening.
That triggered a dialogue from the Witch, the Lion and the Wardrobe. The children are asking about Aslan:
'Then is he safe?'
'Safe? ...Course he's not safe. But he is good.'
That is true of God too. He is the Holy Wild, untamable but crazy about you and me!
I will have to chew on that for awhile.

The dryer

We have an inside laundry room off our kitchen. For all the years we have had our dog, we have had his water and food dishes there. We turn on the radio and put down his bed there when we leave. It is his safe room.
Well, this week, he has decided that it is scary in there. Seems that the dryer is a monster out to get him. We think maybe it came on on it's own when he was closed in there at some point. No matter how hungry or thirsty he is, he will not go in there to eat or drink now. It is so pathetic to see. I have to move it to the kitchen so him.
All this has made me think of sheep. They are dumb, dirty and defenseless. That is why they need a shepherd. Someone has to look out for them, making sure they don't eat poisonous weeds. If they fall over, they are like turtles. They can't get back up alone. They need the shepherd to turn them over again. And they will not drink from rapid moving water. It's too scary. They are just like Buddy in that respect.
People needs a shepherd too, Jesus. He said he is the Good shepherd. He never deserts his sheep and will deal with weeds, water and so much more. He calms, them bringing them to quiet waters where they will not be scared.
He calms me when I am afraid by taking me aside and having me rest in His care. I can trust him.
Now if I can only get Buddy to trust me again about the laundry room.

Change

I know that I said I like the new year and new beginnings, but in another sense I hate change. Perhaps that is my OCD kicking in? So many things change. My weight changes, believe me. My hair color has changed, though my faithful hair dresser keeps it the same as far as the world can see. Friends can change, move, or be alienated from me and some have this last year.
One of the changes I am bugged about the most right now is the price of stamps. I do email lots but I do write snail mail notes too and hate to have to pay 2 cents more beginning Monday. Ugh. Maybe it is the fault of all those emailers??? It will not stop me from writing but it is one change I am not happy about.
Change is not a factor with God. Jesus said He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. There is a big word, 'immutable', to describe that but unchanging is enough for me. In my changing world, I am glad that I can count on God to be the one stable point in it.

Beans

I was spoiled as a child, in many ways. I am sure that my brother would agree. But the way that comes back to roost is my eating.
First off, my Father did all the cooking. He had been a cook in the Navy and that carried over into his private life. A story is told of my Mom cooking in the early weeks of their marriage. She made a tuna casserole and my Father, being kind, said how good it was. The story goes on to say that she made it every night for 30 days. After that my Father took over and did all the cooking.
When I came along, the baby in the family, I was never made to eat anything I did not want to eat. I shudder to tell that about myself now. I told you I was spoiled. I missed out on so many things. For example, I never ate strawberries because I thought that the seeds would be yucky. After our Ruth was born, they served Strawberry shortcake and I was so hungry that I ate it. Wow! Had I missed a great thing. To this day, I can't get enough strawberries.
The only vegetables we were served were peas, carrots and corn. Oh, and spinach. Somehow I tried and loved that!
Recently Jon has developed high triglycerides! So our MD has suggested a Mediterranean diet- lots of beans, lentils, fish, olive oil, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Did I tell you I hate beans, can't stand to look at them, refuse to try them. UGH!!!
But I knew that someone day I would have to learn to eat them. I guess that that day has come. Today I spent the morning with a dear friend. I talked to her about the changes we needed to make and my inability to cook beans or eat them. She took the bull by the horns and showed me how to cook pinto beans. It was so simple. While they were cooking we spent some time praying for each other. She prayed for God to teach me the things I needed to know and to come and cook with me. I had this picture in my mind of Jesus with a chef's hat on and an apron, giving my cooking lessons in my kitchen. I made me cry and smile at the same time. My friend also prayed that I would learn to like beans. Now that is a tall order.
But I have to tell you that she gave me taste and they were not bad at all. She sent me home with some and I actually created a diner around them, adding hot homemade bread and a fruit salad. And miracle of miracles I have a second helping!
Nothing is too hard for God.

2006

I love the first of each year. I get out the new calendar with all blank spaces. I get out my new journal to record what God says to me each day. I get a new prayer journal to record the answers God gives, even the nos.
Last year had it joys and challenges. Jon had too many medical appointments, though we are so glad that none were life threatening. We purchased a new car, though not in the way or time that we planned. We made new friends and deepened relationships with old ones.
We saw two of our grandsons survive Amtrak rides that got stuck in Truckee on more than one occasion. We saw two grandsons live through a harrowing bus ride to Modesto, by way of the Oakland bus depot. We were surprised with the news of a growing great child - baby Jenson as I have come to call her/ him as I pray for her/ him.
We rejoiced that our daughters celebrated another year of marriage to great guys. We too celebrated another year- number 33 to be exact. That in itself is God's miraculous grace at work. I turned 60 with a surprise party with my two daughters!!!!
Yet as I look at my blank calendar for 2006, I have cause to wonder if I have what it is going to take to face what the year brings. Then God reminded me of one of my favorite verses. King David said:
All the day so my life were written in a book( God's book about me) before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16
What a reminder that I may not know the details about my tomorrow but I know Who holds tomorrow and I know Who holds my hand.
So bring it on .