In the nick of time!

 

Don’t you just hate it when you buy some perishable grocery item, only to have it go bad before you can use it? Even though I plan my menus and grocery shopping carefully, sometimes it still happens. More often than I’d like!


A couple of weeks ago, I bought several colored sweet peppers because they were on a good sale, thinking I’d make some fajitas. For one reason and another, the fajitas kept getting moved to menus for days later in the week. I thought I’d make them for tonight, then noticed that the particular recipe I intended to use called for the crock pot -- which I had just washed and put away. Not anxious to wash the pot again so soon, I moved the fajitas to tomorrow and planned a supper of leftovers -- the steak for the fajitas was still frozen, anyway. (Yes, I know you can buy those plastic liners for the slow cooker, and I like them for some things, especially ribs, but I thought it might be a pain trying to scoop the fajita filling out of the liner.) The peppers weren’t spoiled yet, just wrinkly, and I didn’t want to waste them.


So here’s what I did: washed the peppers and cut them in strips, then arranged them on a huge parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Stuck the sheet in the freezer just as it was. When the pepper strips are frozen solid, I’m going to stuff them into zip-top freezer bags and have some great IQF peppers on hand. I ended up with lots more than I’ll use in the fajitas, so there’ll be some for the future, and I’ll feel not only rich, but thrifty and smart. (Not as smart as if I’d done this right off, however. A lesson for the future!)

This is the day which the LORD hath made!

Designed by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings

Psalm 118:24 is one of my favorite Scriptures! "This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

So many times we just do not feel like rejoicing on a particular day. I am very blessed that many years ago, a dear friend made me a little framed cross-stitch piece with this verse on it. I chose to hang it in the bathroom because the colors were perfect with the wallpaper. It's only been in the past few years that I recognized God's hand in prompting me to hang it there. This little verse is the first thing I see when I step out of the shower each morning.

Even when I haven't been consciously aware of it, these precious words have prompted me to have an attitude of rejoicing as I start each new day. No, the day ahead may not be filled with our favorite things. Often, we do not have any idea what a particular day may bring. But God does! It is a day that He has made, and He is our all-wise, all-knowing God. We can rejoice in that!

Ongoing answers to ongoing prayers...

I’ve been so encouraged lately to see how God has been answering my ongoing prayers for my own growth in several areas. It’s happened without my even being totally aware of it. These are things I usually pray for only once a week, on Saturday, my day to pray for myself.

(I don’t recall if I have shared much in the past about my prayer journal. So I’ll briefly do so here. Basically, I have three sections -- Adoration, Agreeing, and Asking. In Adoration, I have a number of pages dealing with individual attributes of God. In Agreeing, I have a number of pages dealing with sin issues/character flaws in my life. Asking is the largest section and contains a divider for each day of the week, as well as one for every day. I pray for my husband, kids/grandkids, my parents, and a few special friends everyday. I have our church directory divided up pretty much evenly and pray for a certain portion of our church family each day. Beyond that, on Monday I pray for missionaries; Tuesday, for special friends; Wednesday, for church leadership; Thursday, for our country and our extended family; Friday, for several special families I am praying specific verses for; Saturday, for my personal requests, and Sunday, for each aspect of our church services, any visitors, etc. So that’s my prayer journal in a nutshell.)

Back to my personal prayer requests. I have a number of them. But sometime back, when I completed a Bible study on Proverbs 31 (“Beautiful in God’s Eyes” by Elizabeth George), I was challenged to list down prayer requests for areas where I needed to grow and change to become a woman like the Proverbs 31 woman. Here’s my list:
********************

* MYSELF: work on kindness, careful speech, health and energy.

* MY HUSBAND: work on taking better care of him, helping him, benefiting him.

* MY HOUSEHOLD: work more diligently at watching over it.

* MY ENTERPRISES: work harder at discovering how God might have me to use my skills and interests to benefit the family.

**********************

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t seen huge progress or answers in all of these areas. But in a couple of areas the answers have been amazing.

For the health and energy request, I am continually learning to eat more healthfully and exercise more regularly. A free download from FlyLady.net called the “body clutter investigator” has recently helped me keep much better track of things like water, exercise, sleep, and fiber intake on a daily basis. Each of those things really makes a difference! I’ve lost a lot of weight over the past year and gotten a lot more fit as I’ve exercised more regularly.

For the household request, I’ve shared before how the FlyLady system has helped me get a handle on my homemaking. Even though I haven’t done the best at this through my recent big writing project, yet I’ve been amazed at how having the basic routines in place has helped me stay right on top of meals, laundry, dishes, etc. In the past, all of those things would suffer when I had a deadline. I’ve also been helped by Elizabeth George’s books “Life Management for Busy Women” and “God’s Wisdom for a Woman’s Life” and also by Organized Home.com. (Today I have zeroed in on my kitchen, as that’s the FlyZone for the week, and am seeing some progress even though it’s late in the week. As FlyLady says, I am not behind!) In recent weeks, I’ve been blessed to visit the blogs of Mrs. B and Mrs. Wilt and find these ladies to be incredibly inspiring in the household department!


Another ongoing prayer request of mine has been to nurture my creativity. I find that I am happiest if I can do one creative thing, however small, each day. I’ve gotten much inspiration from the crafts message board at Organized Christmas.com. The ladies there put up a challenge each week for spending a certain amount of time crafting. Although I seldom accomplish everything on my list, yet I find it very encouraging to have goals and just pick away at them bit by bit. It has kept crafting on my “radar screen” even on the most stressful days. Again, I find my creativity nurtured by visiting blogs -- I’ve been especially blessed by Mrs. Wilt’s thrifting finds and by the vintage embroidery pattern site she shared. I’ve also been blessed -- just today -- as I looked over an essay from Kelly at FlyLady.net concerning a “kitchen remodel” that costs almost nothing but time and a creative way of looking at things.


What an amazing God we have! I am humbled and so very encouraged as I see how He works and the different vessels He uses to answer our very personal, heartfelt prayer requests.

A sigh of relief...

Yes, I'm heaving a sigh of relief as I see the end of my huge writing project in sight. Theres' still a bit of organizing to do, but the actual hard work of writing 100 pages or so is done.

As I've come to expect, the day after finishing such a monumental effort is something of a letdown, in a way. I say "letdown" for lack of a better word. It's more like I can't decide what to do next. Do I catch up on housework? Do I write letters or e-mails to all my friends I've neglected for months? Do I post in my blog? Do I sit down and cross-stitch? Do I get out my new sewing machine (still in the box since Christmas) and try it out? Do I cook? Do I rake the yard? So many choices, after weeks of no free time, are mind-boggling.

Maybe I can make it a "15-minute day" (a la FlyLady) where I do different things for 15 minutes at a time all day long. I do need to vacuum my upstairs. I'll also do some work in the kitchen, since that's the FlyZone for this week.

Hope everyone else has a happy day!

A weekend in the kitchen

This has been a very kitchen-y weekend. Our church’s missions conference just ended last night, and it seems I spent a great deal of time either cooking in my own kitchen or cleaning up in the church kitchen.

During our missions conference, we have two events involving food. On Saturday evening before that service, we traditionally have an international covered dish supper. And on Sunday night following the service, we plan a “pie fellowship” -- a time when everyone brings pies to share.

In addition, we were taking a missionary family out for Sunday lunch and bringing them back to our home for the afternoon and for dessert. So a good deal of cooking and baking was in order.

On Saturday, I made brownies for our Sunday dessert. I also made some microwave dulce de leche to use in two banoffee pies for the pie fellowship. (For those who are not familiar with banoffee pie, it’s a British dessert made with bananas and a caramel filling in a graham cracker crust, topped with whipped cream. This was the first time I had tried this and it came out very good.) For the international meal, I fixed some Indian-style vegetables, a Tex-Mex green bean salad, and a British apple crumble. In the freezer, I had stashed several foil-wrapped packages of Roti -- chicken & potato filled wraps seasoned with lots of celery, garlic, and curry -- to take as my main dish. One of my daughters showed me how to make this Indian treat, having learned the recipe and technique from a friend in Antigua. The recipe made a ton and so I froze a bunch with the international supper in mind. I was pleasantly surprised that the potatoes did not turn at all mushy in the freezer!

On Sunday, we took our friends out to a Chinese restaurant, then brought them home with us and had brownies with ice cream & (homemade!) hot fudge sauce later in the afternoon. I whipped the cream and topped my pies and took them to the pie fellowship, where they were very well received. Came home after the evening service and washed the dishes... and that wraps up my weekend cooking adventures.

More journal entries...

Lovely graphic by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings

Here are some more random entries from my journal.

September 10, 2002
“I’m thankful for the Bible studies I’ve felt led to do on my own in recent years. Today I had a problem with something I knew I should handle differently. I saw a definite tendency toward impatience with the situation. What a blessing to be able to turn back to my study notes on the fruit of the Spirit and review patience! And what an encouragement to face, in my prayer journal, that impatience is one of my character flaws and to note down helpful verses and spend time talking with the Lord about it!
“Another encouragement in my walk with God is how He will lay specific things on my heart to pray about. This has been the case for quite awhile, but recently I’ve been seeing it with an almost startling clarity: The Lord wants me to pray for this!”

Some thoughts on patience:

“It is the quality of putting up with other people, even when... sorely tried.” -- Alan Cole

“If God had been a man, He would have wiped out this world long ago, but He has that patience which bears with all of our sinning and will not cast us off. [Therefore] in our dealings with our fellow men, we must reproduce this loving, forbearing, forgiving, patient attitude of God.” -- William Barclay

September 13, 2002

“I’ve been studying 2 Kings 4:1-7 for my Sunday School lesson -- the story of the impoverished widow of one of the godly prophets. One of her creditors was threatening to take her two sons as slaves. The only thing of value she had in her house was a pot of oil. The prophet Elisha instructed her to borrow jars from her neighbors and to fill the jars from her pot of oil. The oil did not run out -- there was enough to fill every jar she had borrowed. She was then able to sell the oil to pay her debt and support her family.
William MacDonald, writing in Believer’s Bible Commentary, says: ‘This event illustrates grace for the debtor, enough to meet present needs and to provide for future sustenance. God’s grace to needy sinners sets us free from debt and slavery and provides all we need for a new life.’
What a marvelous illustration of grace this story is!

October 15, 2002

“A cold, crisp, sunny October morning... a morning with the bright color and crisp tang of an autumn apple! How it conjures up memories of going to Rockledge Orchard to buy apples in the autumns of my childhood. The big barn would be cool and dim and completely permeated with the wonderful fragrance of apples from the wooden boxes of fruit stacked everywhere.”

July 5, 2004

“Camping! What a blessing it is to just come to a beautiful part of God’s creation and be away from the entire busyness of our everyday life. We love tenting and have for years. I just love the incense of campfire smoke wafting through the air! I love to hear families playing board or card games together at their picnic tables in the evenings. And I especially love the scent of frying bacon or sausages in the early mornings.”

While we were camping, I set aside some time to do some journaling. I had been reading a book that posed some really challenging questions, and thought this quiet time might help me think through and answer them. One of the questions was:

“If you were to die tomorrow, what would you want people to remember about you?”
Here’s what I came up with:

“I think first and foremost I would pray to be remembered as a godly woman. That’s the bottom line. I would also like to be remembered as someone who encouraged other believers and helped them to grow. Along with that -- and I believe this is all part and parcel of being a godly woman -- I would like to be remembered as an older woman who was faithful in teaching the younger ones. I would like to be remembered as one who used her spiritual gifts and God-given talents for His glory. I would like to be remembered as a good mother and grandmother who was faithful in encouraging and praying for her children and grandchildren and who was a good example to them.”

These are lofty goals and the rest of my life doesn’t seem enough time to come close to achieving them. But I know God would have me to aim at these goals.

Another question was this: “What do you feel most passionate about?”

My reply:

“Hmmm... I guess probably the one topic (which encompasses a lot of others) that really is a passion for me -- maybe even a hobbyhorse at times -- is Christian growth and the necessity for it. Our churches are filled with immature Christians. I heard once at a seminar that the average church attender, maybe even the average church member, is ‘like a baby sucking on a bottle”. And from what I have seen over the years I believe this to be true.

“No, I haven’t ‘arrived’ in my Christian growth, either. That doesn’t happen. I’m still growing in the Lord myself, and will be until I see Him. But I find it truly distressing how few believers are making any real attempt to grow. Equally distressing is the fact that many churches either ignore the need for solid teaching or just give people what they want to hear.  Sure, it’s vital for people to be saved, but it’s every bit as important for them to grow. So a passion of mine is definitely helping that to happen.”

January 10, 2005

I’ve been doing the study God’s Wisdom for a Woman’s Life by Elizabeth George. The particular chapter I was studying today was about our priorities. I was challenged by these words from the author:

“The more you seek a heart of wisdom by focusing on God’s priorities for you and practice those priorities, the more you will eventually live by them.”

To me, this is sort of like the saying, “Use it -- or lose it!” It’s like the “muscle tone” of wisdom. If we don’t use wisdom, it will slip away. I think one important thing I can do is to consciously pray each day for wisdom and right priorities.

Entries from my journal...

 

I was thumbing through my journal this morning and it occurred to me that maybe it would be a good idea to post some of my thoughts here at the kitchen table. I use my journal for writing down all sorts of things -- travel diaries, thoughts that occur to me, studying particular passages of Scripture, and assignments for Bible studies I’m doing. Here are a few random entries...

June 18, 2004 --”The year is speeding by, and already it is June. I delight in having my quiet time on the screened porch, surrounded by greenery, fresh breezes, and birdsong.
“I’ve been reading through the Gospels, and today was in Mark 1. In the account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, it says that when she was healed, she ‘rose and ministered unto’ Peter and his friends. I imagine she served them a meal. How often we suppose ‘Christian service’ to be some grand and glorious work, when most often it is doing the everyday things as unto Him.” I liked this quote:

“A great many persons are always sighing for opportunities to minister to Christ, imagining some fine and splendid service which they would like to render. Meantime they let slip past their hands the very things in which Christ wants them to serve Him. True ministry to Christ is doing first of all and well one’s daily duties.”
-- J.R. Miller, Come Ye Apart

January 9, 2005 -- “Just wanted to quickly record here a beautiful sight we saw on the way to church yesterday morning. Every ice-coated stem of weed or grass sparkled like crystal icicles. And the smooth surfaces of new snow looked exactly as if they had been sprinkled with white glitter. Oh, the amazing beauty of God’s creation, and the ‘treasures of the snow’!”

May 12, 2005 -- “Out for a daily walk, I spotted it on the roadside: a gorgeous violet, with leaves as glossy and healthy and blossoms as deeply purple as any well-tended houseplant. Yet what were its surroundings? Dry, inhospitable gravel. It stood out against a background of stony gravel and sparse weeds, yet it bloomed so extravagantly. Just another illustration of how we’re to bloom where God plants us, how we are to rise above our circumstances, and how we’re to stand out from the world around us.”

February 8, 2006 -- “I’ve been impressed [through the study God’s Wisdom for a Woman’s Life] with the crucial importance of living out my faith before my children. Even though they are grown and gone, with families of their own, and my structured times of teaching them are long over, yet they are observing me and my actions and reactions to the issues of life. I don’t want them to see someone who is shallow or is merely ‘playing church’. I want them to see an example of victorious Christian living and true faith. I liked this quote I found concerning Eunice: ‘Timothy received the gift of life twice from his mother. She gave him birth and then showed him what a life of faith could be.’
“May I be consistently showing my children what a life of faith looks like in daily practice! To do this, I need to stay close to the Lord and live in obedience to His Word.”