A to Z Scripture Challenge, Week 6

Lovely graphic by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings

  This is week 6 in Ellen's  A to Z Bible Verse Challenge over at The Happy Wonderer.    This is such an encouraging series to help us stay our hearts and minds on God and His Word during these days.  I hope that many of us are playing along with this challenge and thinking about Scripture verses containing the letter of the week.  Even if we don't all link up with Ellen's blog,  we can all open our Bibles and search out verses.  Today we are looking for words beginning with the letter F.  There are many good possibilities, but I chose the word Faithfulness.

"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.

"They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness."  (Lamentations 3:22-23)

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."  (1 Corinthians 10:13)

"Faithful" here is the Greek pistos, meaning "to be trusted; reliable."  And that is certainly true of God!

The following words from Ruth Paxson's book Life on the Highest Plane were an encouragement to me. Maybe they will be a blessing to someone else today.

"Our faith may falter but His faithfulness never. Peter failed Christ oh! so miserably that three times over he could deny his Lord. But the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to Peter remained unshaken. The heavenly Father cannot forget His promises nor can He deny Himself by failing to keep them.

Psalm 89:33, "Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail."

2 Timothy 2:13, ""If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself."

We may even be ready to give up in defeat to the enemy or to lay down our task in sheer discouragement. We may be on the point of taking our hand from the plow and turning back. But Christ is not discouraged; He will not give up; He acknowledges no victory on the devil's part. He has called us into fellowship with Himself; He has owned us as His possession and has assumed His responsibility for our control and He will not lay it aside. What He has begun in us He will continue. His work in us does not depend upon our love for Him but on His love for us; not faith in our faith but faith in His faithfulness is what He wants from us."
-- Ruth Paxson, Life on the Highest Plane
 

For even more encouragement concerning God's faithfulness, I suggest you also read over the words of the hymn "Great is Thy Faithfulness".  If you keep a hymnal or two around your home, as I do, it will be easy to look up the hymn.  Or you could easily find it online.  Another wonderful resource is this post by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings: Great is Thy Faithfulness.  Or look at any of Abby's Scripture-filled posts and free graphics.  You are sure to be blessed and encouraged!

 In 2016, I chose Faithfulness as my word for the year, and at first had in mind God's faithfulness to His people.  But in a message that I heard in church that January, our speaker noted that every trial is an opportunity to prove ourselves faithful to God.  He added that the more difficult the trial, the greater the opportunity to honor God by being faithful to Him.

So --  there is another aspect to "faithfulness".  Not only God's faithfulness to me, which is unfailing.  But my faithfulness to God.  Not only in trials, but in what may be even more challenging -- faithfulness in the everyday and sometimes discouraging tasks He has given me to do.   This faithfulness is something I need to work at in every area of my life when I so often feel like giving up. 

So I can be blessed and encouraged as I consider God's faithfulness to me every day.

And I can be challenged to live each day in faithfulness to Him and the things He has called me to do.  In 2020, all of this takes on additional meaning, don't you think?

A sweet Wednesday Hodgepodge

  

 It's time again for the Wednesday Hodgepodge, where Joyce asks the questions and bloggers provide the answers.  It's usually a lot of fun -- though sometimes a challenge -- and a great way to come up with an interesting blog post.  If you'd like to join in,  just head over to From This Side of the Pond and get the questions from Joyce, then answer them on your own blog. Here are the questions for this week:

1. Let's start things off right...Wednesday is National Dessert Day. What are we having? How often do you  make/serve dessert? Store bought or from scratch? 

I'll have to think about what we're having.  We don't ordinarily have dessert on weekdays and usually only serve dessert when we have folks over for a meal -- which is several times per month.  However, since this is a "holiday", and since we're starting a 40-day sugar fast on Saturday, I will probably bake something today.  Probably something with apples.  I seldom serve a store-bought dessert other than ice cream.

The Apple Crisp Pizza above is one of our very favorite fall desserts, especially to serve to company or to take to a potluck.

2. Slow as molasses, icing on the cake, that's the way the cookie crumbles, have your cake and eat it too, half-baked idea, that takes the cake...which phrase might be applied to something in your life in recent days? Explain. 

Slow as molasses is the way I feel most days.  But on a more upbeat note, my hubby and I enjoyed a recent getaway.  It's always a blessing to just get out of town and spend some uninterrupted time together.  The "icing on the cake" was finding some new-to-us hiking trails, exploring a little town we'd never visited, and trying a couple of new restaurants.  Even more icing was the fact that the fall foliage was at its peak of color in the area we visited.

One of our hikes took us around a remote pond.  The last quarter or so of the route or so was all uphill on a class 6 road seemingly paved with rocks.  I was moving as slow as molasses by the time we reached our car.

3. Something that's 'easy as pie' for you to do?

I'm trying to think of something in that category.   Let's see: It's incredibly easy for me to eat far too many potato chips.  That would be just one example.

4. Are you someone who likes to 'sugarcoat' news you think might not be well received, or are you more of a tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may? Do you like to receive your news the same way you give it? 

I'm not really one to "sugarcoat" things, but if I had difficult news to share I would approach it as kindly as possible.   When I receive news of that type, I would appreciate being told kindly as well.  I've received a lot of news delivered in other ways, and it is most distressing.

5. Something you did recently that made you feel like a 'smart cookie'? 

Located a beautiful, reasonably priced Airbnb for our recent getaway.  I didn't feel all that smart -- I prayed, God provided.  But my hubby (who was well aware of my answered prayers) must have raved a dozen times about me finding this place.  It really was lovely and fit our needs exactly. 

The photo above shows a delightful touch at the Airbnb -- a tree wrapped in white lights, with a lovely wind chime made from silverware.  I've seen this type of wind chime before, but this is by far the nicest one I've seen.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Random indeed, but I found it fascinating.  We visited a very old cemetery while out and about on our getaway.  Some of the stones in this cemetery are so old that the inscriptions were written with the fs in place of s. 

The cemetery was out back of the church above.  You can just glimpse the cemetery off to the right.

And there's the Hodgepodge for this week.  Happy Wednesday, all!

Apple Crisp Pie Bars

 

A couple of weeks ago I had a lot of apples to use up and made a couple of apple desserts.   One of them was this recipe I put together by combining a couple of different recipes.

Regular readers may have noticed I have a tendency to do this.  I'll see a recipe I like the look of but on closer inspection it looks too complicated.  I'll streamline it if I can, but sometimes I'll see a similar recipe I can borrow from to create a whole new recipe.  Sadly, I also have the regrettable tendency to forget what I've done if I don't write it down.

That's what happened with these bars.  I had seen an apple bar recipe on Instagram that looked absolutely scrumptious, but when I looked the recipe up on Taste of Home (where it was from), it didn't have very good reviews and looked like a lot of work.  So I combined it with a dutch apple pie recipe, adjusted the quantity of crust to work with a 13x9 pan, and it all turned out quite well.  So ...

APPLE CRISP PIE BARS

For the crust:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup butter, melted
Mix all crust ingredients until crumblly and set aside 2 cups or so of the crust mixture for the topping.  Press the rest of the mixture evenly onto the bottom and partway up the sides of a 13X9 baking pan.

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons apple pie spice (or 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon)
8 cups peeled, sliced, tart apples
Combine the sugar, flour and spices in a large bowl.  Add the sliced apples and toss well to combine.  Arrange the apples evenly over the crust in the pan.  Crumble the remaining topping over the apples. 

Bake in a preheated 375º oven for 45 minutes or a little more, or until the apple filling is bubbly and the crust is golden brown.  Cool in pan on wire rack before cutting into bars.  Makes at least 24 bars, depending on the size you cut them.

These bars are best served with a fork rather than eating out of hand.  They're a bit crumbly and the filling is a bit juicy.  They'd be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side -- and a couple of times my husband and I had one for breakfast with vanilla Greek yogurt on top.  Hope you enjoy these bars if you try the recipe!  I've made them twice now and they went over very well with everyone who tasted them.

E is for ...

 

 It's Thursday again, and time for  Ellen's A to Z Bible Verse Challenge over at The Happy Wonderer.    This is such an encouraging series to help us stay our hearts and minds on God and His Word during these days.  I hope that many of us are playing along with this challenge and thinking about Scripture verses containing the letter of the week.  Even if we don't all link up with Ellen's blog,  we can all open our Bibles and search out verses.  Today we are looking for words beginning with the letter E.

There are lots of good Bible words that begin with E.  One that I particularly like is the word Encourage, and my very favorite verse containing it is found in 1 Samuel 30:6 -- "But David encouraged himself in the LORD his God."

Look for a minute at the circumstances in David's life at this time.  At the time, he and his men, along with their families, were living in the city of Ziklag.  If we look at verses 1-5 of 1 Samuel 30, we see that when David and his men returned to Ziklag from meeting with the Philistines, they found the city destroyed.  The Amalekites had invaded Ziklag in their absence, had burned it to the ground and had taken all of the women and children captives.  Verse 4 shows us the depth of the grief of David and his men: "Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep."  David's two wives, Abigail and Ahinoam, were among those taken captive.

The beginning of verse 6 tells us, "David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters."

With the word "but" in the middle of the verse, though, we see a change of direction.  In the midst of his distress, "David encouraged himself in the LORD his God."  

How might David have done this?  My Bible gives a couple of cross-references:

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?  hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."  (Psalm 42:5)

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.  In God I will praise His Word, in God I have put my trust: I will not fear what flesh can do unto me."  (Psalm 56:3-4)

David reminded himself of what he knew about God, and of how God had helped him in the past.  He knew that he could trust God completely.  Verse 8 of 1 Samuel 30 tells us that he sought wisdom from the Lord as to how to deal with this calamity.  

"And David inquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue; for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all."

Reading on to verses 18-19, we see that this is exactly what happened: "David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away; and David rescued his two wives."  The story, though terrifying, had a happy ending.

So how about us?  We are also in distressing circumstances in our world today, and maybe in our personal lives as well.  Let's be sure to encourage ourselves in the Lord and remind ourselves of what we know about Him.  How might we do that more effectively?

Last week I mentioned the wonderful book What Do I Know About my God? by Mardi Collier.  If you want to be encouraged and get to know your God better, I highly recommend that you get the book and begin making a notebook full of wonderful truth about your God.  

 You can find it at the link above or also at Thriftbooks or Amazon.  I've purchased a number of used copies to give away over the years.  Mardi and her husband Ken have also put together a meditation booklet from the categories in the book.  Called The Emergency Pack, it is also a huge blessing.  But if you purchase What Do I Know About my God?, the emergency pack verses are also included within it.  So you won't need both, unless you want to give one away as an encouragement to someone else.

Of course you don't need a book to compile a notebook full of truth about God; you could absolutely do this on your own, thinking of different aspects of God's character and then searching out Scripture verses that correspond to each aspect.  However, if you are like me, the book will give you a wonderfully helpful starting point and it's just an encouraging read as well.

In times of trouble in my own life, I have pulled out my notebook and reminded myself of what I know about my God.  Invariably, I receive a fresh infusion of courage to carry on.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 reminds us: "Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches,

"But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD,"  

We can get to know God well! And as we do, we are increasingly encouraged.  When we are distressed we will be able to do as David did and encourage ourselves in the Lord our God!

Monday musings

Another weekend goes by without a Friday five, so here are a few Monday musings.

Let's see ...

1. Grateful to spend a good part of Thursday with our friend Terry.  It's great she is feeling well enough to get out and about a little bit.  All of the foliage photos on this post  were taken at Richardson's Farm Ice Cream at the edge of the parking lot and along the road.  The ice cream was pretty great, too!  My hubby had pumpkin ice cream; I had a scoop of pumpkin and one of gingerbread; and Terry had warm apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream on top.  All scrumptious.  The ice cream is made right there and Jim is a master at coming up with new and delicious seasonal flavors.  They also sell pies and other goodies, plus apples.

2. Thankful for a 30 Days to Less challenge with Becki over at  Field Lilies.  I've been unofficially participating in this (meaning that I am doing the decluttering and disposing of, but am not taking photos or posting about it every day as Becki is doing) and it has been a huge encouragement -- just the nudge I needed.

3.  Thankful for progress made at our little camp in the past week.  I did quite a bit more cleaning and my hubby did lots with electrical wiring and other tasks.  We ascertained that the apartment-size vintage electric stove still works.  (It's a Monarch and absolutely amazing-looking.  And the owner's manual still exists!)  

 Mr. T also did some maintenance work on the woodstove that will heat much of the camp, and on Saturday he fired it up for the first time.  

This stove was formerly in our kitchen at home, and back in the day our girls used to pull rocking chairs up in front of it to do homework or have their Bible times.  What fun it was on Sunday to see a grandson (who knew nothing of his mom ever doing the same thing) pull up a rocking chair, grab a fleece blanket and just enjoy the warmth of this old stove!

4.  The fun of takeout barbecue from this nifty place: Cardigan Country Store on Friday night.   Mr. T got chicken and I got pulled pork, and then we shared.  Oh, my.  I have never tasted pulled pork like this.  To see the menu, go to the store website and click on Cardigan Country Barbecue.  (If you are local, I think this coming weekend may be the last of the barbecue for this season, so you will want to get there if you'd like to try it this year.)

 

5.  Spending some good time at our little camp on Sunday afternoon. So much fun to have grandkids stopping by.  I love seeing them run through the woods or wheel into our yard via the dirt road on their bikes.  They are already enjoying this unique and cozy little place far more than I ever did as a child.  I can't even say how delighted I am that God allowed us to keep this property in the family and that He is providing for us to fix it up and make it usable again.

That's it for Monday musings.  How did your weekend go?

Some goals for October

 

We're three days into a brand new month and I'm thrilled to welcome October -- arguably my favorite month of the year.  Here are some goals for the month:

 * Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones
* Participate in the 31-Day Cry Out! prayer challenge at Revive Our Hearts
* Post in my blogs and on Instagram as often as possible
* Continue our discipleship study with new believers
* Have folks over for Sunday lunch a time or two
* Complete some estate responsibilities
* Work on the cottage we are fixing up
 * Walk and/or exercise at least 4 times each week
* Get back into Flylady's homemaking zones of the week
* Do something creative each day
* Continue planning for family birthday gifts and crafting any handmade ones
* Spend a little time on some UFO craft projects
* Redouble my efforts in stocking my Etsy shop and continuing to sell vintage items
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family
* Plan a getaway and time at a couple's retreat with my hubby
* Attend some edifying fall meetings at local churches
* Help and encourage my local daughter as I'm able
* Continue to encourage and support my hubby as he works through a pastoral search for our church
* Begin a 40-day sugar fast
* Help our widowed friend Terry with the challenges of life in general
* Get to bed by 9 pm each night  
* Pay much more attention to drinking enough water each day
* Read several books  
HEALTHY HABITS FOR OCTOBER:  Drink more water/get more sleep/walk regularly/limit sugar
MY WORD FOR 2020: Diligence

D is for ...

Graphic from Good Morning Girls

It's Thursday, and time for  Ellen's A to Z Bible Verse Challenge over at The Happy Wonderer.    I think it's a wonderful idea to help us stay our hearts and minds on God and His Word during these days.  Today we are looking for words beginning with the letter D.  

I picked the word Deliver.  This is such a meaningful word.  If we have trusted Christ as Savior, He has delivered us from our former life and given us a brand new life.  (And if we don't yet know Him, He is ready to do that for us if we will turn to Him and ask.)

"[He] hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son."  (Colossians 1:13)

The word "delivered" in the above verse is from the Greek verb rhuomai, meaning "to rescue from".  

Our English word means just about the same:

 And there is more ... much more.  Here are just a few of my favorite verses regarding God's deliverance of His people:

 "For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living."  (Psalm 116:8-9)

When I worked on a study of Psalms, I wrote this simple prayer in response to these verses:

"Lord, I am so thankful for Your bountiful dealings with me.  In Your grace and mercy, You have inclined Your ear to me and helped me when I called upon You.  I thank and praise You for loosing my bonds and delivering my soul from death.  I pray that You will help me to faithfully walk with You every day of this life, in Jesus' name, Amen."

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."  (2 Peter 2:9)

"The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles ... Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivereth him out of them all."  (Psalm 34:17, 19)

"And call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." (Psalm 50:15)

How true I have found this to be!  When I call upon God in times of trouble, He rescues me in some way.  It may not always be the way I am hoping for, but He does come to my rescue.  And then I can share testimony of His faithfulness and goodness to me, glorifying Him!  

God told Jeremiah,

" Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the LORD ... And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee."  (Jeremiah 1:8, 19)

And remember what David said as he faced Goliath?

"David said moreover, the LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.  And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee."  (1 Samuel 17:37)

And how about Daniel's three friends who would not bow down to the image?  They said,

"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thy hand, O king.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."  (Daniel 3:17-18)

They understood that it might not be God's plan to deliver them.  But they had no doubt at all that He was able to deliver them, and they confidently acted on that trust.

Oh, there is so much more in God's Word concerning deliverance.  I have merely scratched the surface.  In my study of Mardi Collier's wonderful book What Do I Know About My God? I did a section titled "My God Delivers" and found, without even looking very hard, over 25 Bible passages that allude to God's deliverance of His people.  (If you have never read this book, it is completely Bible-centered and helps you to get to know your God as you may never have known Him before.  You will end up with a notebook full of truth about Him.  I can't recommend it highly enough.)

 I'll finish off this simple post with Psalm 37:39-40:

"But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD; He is their strength in the time of trouble.  And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him."

What a blessing for God's children to keep in mind today! 

(Wouldn't you like to read more,  or join in with Ellen's Bible verse challenge?  Be sure to head over to The Happy Wonderer to do so!)