a small flame

A day in the life:Thomas

2012-01-27T13:11:00.003-05:00

11:45 a.m.

Coming indoors as rain threatens and
oh so pleased with himself

'I checked the neighbor's mail
and took it to their door.
I knocked on the door but no one came
so I just laid the mail down by the door.'

A day in the life:Thomas

2012-01-27T11:51:00.002-05:00

11 a.m.

{while thrusting his sword at me} 'Taste cold cheese!'

.

A day in the life:Thomas

2012-01-27T11:33:00.007-05:00

9 a.m.

Thomas runs to me, giggling.

'I'm a doctor!'

'An underwear doctor!'

:O)

the cup stays empty

2012-01-23T22:32:00.012-05:00

If you peeked into my jewelry box, in the compartment right at the top, you would find a little plastic cup. The clear kind that churches all over use in their Lord's Supper services. It even has a tiny bit of grape juice dried in the bottom.

I drank out of that cup one Sunday, sharing the table with other believers. Family. We sang this song together. And the pastor took his empty cup and turned it upside down for everyone to see. 'It's completely empty,' he said. 'Christ drained the cup of God's wrath so there is none left to be poured out on you. Ever.'

The Father's wrath completely satisfied
Jesus, thank you!

What a freeing realization! In spite of all the times I have failed Him, chosen something else instead of Him, I am forgiven. My sinless Savior drank every bit of the wrath my sin has ever - will ever - earn. The cup is empty. And every time I see it I remember. The cup stays empty.

Party We Did

2012-01-21T15:08:00.021-05:00

This year Daniel really wanted to decorate his own cake. I held the creative reins just enough to make sure the result wouldn't be a disaster :O) I carved a storm trouper mask from cake, covered it in white marshmallow fondant and supplied the food writers. Daniel did the rest.

He was so excited about doing his own cake! He came staggering out early Saturday morning, puffy-eyed with sleep, saying hoarsely, 'Mom, I got up early to decorate my cake'. :O)

He did a great job and was thrilled with the results :O)

The party was a huge success. We filled our little house with a dozen super-excited boys, gave 'em foam sabers, balloons & marshmallow shooters to play with filled them with sugar, and sent them home to their delighted parents :O)

Matthew drew this droid to use as a target for the marshmallow shooters. I think he did a terrific job!

I had a lot of fun with the food for this party. The boys loved the food names. What boy wouldn't love eating asteroids and drinking Yoda soda?

Everyone had a blast and went home happy {and hyper}, so my hard work paid off.

Happy 8, Daniel

Pray as though your life depends on it

2012-01-17T07:04:00.008-05:00

Pray ~~as though~~ your life depends on it

I don't think I did a lot of praying on my numerous diet attempts. I mean, I probably did pray about them sometimes. Prayers like 'I just want to be thin' or 'Please help me to be able to wear that outfit'. But I didn't pray about the real issues. I didn't know how to. I didn't even know what the real issues were.

Fast forward a few years and many failed attempts at 'thin' later, and I was beginning to understand the real issues. And I started to feel God drawing me toward dealing with what was really going on. To walk away from food as my comforter and instead turn toward the only true rest, in Him. And, more specifically, I knew he was calling me to fast from two foods that I had absolutely no self-control with: grain and sugar. {As radical as that seems in our American food culture, our bodies don't need to consume much grain or sugar to be healthy.} I knew with absolute certainty that my Father was calling me to a period of spiritual fasting from something that held way too much control over me.

But I didn't want to do it.

I even said that to a close friend or two: 'I know He wants me to walk away from grain and sugar for a while, and I don't want to do it.' Now I sound like my four-year-old does when I tell him to put his toys down and go to bed, I know. But the bondage of food was just. so. strong. I didn't even want to want to do it.

And then I had an epiphany. I realized that the words 'self-control' in the list in Galatians 5:22 were preceded by the words 'fruit of the Spirit'. Brilliant, I know. But I saw with a clarity that I never had before that self-control was something God's Spirit had to produce in me. I couldn't work up enough 'want to' because I wasn't supposed to. What a freeing realization!

And, so I began begging God for help. I didn't even ask for self-control at first. I asked for the want to. I asked him to change my heart just enough that I would want to have self control. I pleaded with him for the ability to desire Him above everything else. I asked him to make me tired of the settling for my slavery to food.

I read Psalm 84:2 to God every day: My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. I did love God. I did. But more than God, my heart cried out for food. And years of the success-followed-by-failure cycle had proved to me that I was powerless to change it. My only hope was to throw myself on God's mercy. To beg him to transform my heart and it's desires. To plead with him to make Psalm 84:2 a description of my heart, and not a condemnation of what it lacked. And - I can only describe it as 'miraculous' - my heart began to change. Out of my complete lack of 'want to' came a deepening love for my Abba and a growing desire for Him that could make my desire for food turn tail and slink away.

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

I still pray that verse often. I pray it with thanksgiving, because any victory I experience comes straight from His gracious hand. And I pray it with the certain knowledge that, as much as I love Him today, only His power can cause my heart to continue to cry out for Him, even on days when food still shimmers in front of me as the magical cure for my woes. I am completely dependent on Him. And that's the free-est place to be!

Abba,
Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,
and let me not be put to shame in my hope!
Hold me up, that I may be safe
and have regard for your statutes continually!
-Psalm 119: 116-117

What has a stronghold in your life?

Do you still think you can break its power with your own 'muscle'?

Can I urge you to throw yourself fully on God's mercy and leave the outcome in His hands.

Party Time

2012-01-12T13:49:00.009-05:00

We're about to have another birthday at our house. Daniel turns 8 in just a few days and I'm working on the Lego Star Wars birthday he wants.

First up, invitations.

I found some great inspiration on {where else?} Pinterest and took a couple of hours to make these one evening. I used paper towel rolls and wrapping paper rolls from Christmas as the 'bones'. The colored part of each light saber is made from dissected gift bags from the dollar store. Card stock would have been a just tiny bit quicker, but I was able to get 4 sabers from each bag with some left over to use in other decorations, so it was pretty good value for $2.

The on/off buttons are simple holes punched from adhesive-backed craft foam I had in our art box. Squeeze in a bit of hot glue and black electrical tape (also from the dollar store) to hold it all together, and the boys thought they were so cool that they were begging to sword fighting with them before we gave them to Daniel's friends :O)

Each saber is labeled with the name of a 'Jedi' that Daniel is inviting and curls of silver ribbon which I got for next-to-nothing at an after-Christmas sale.

crossroad

2012-01-04T19:35:00.013-05:00

It has been one of those days! I woke up tired, went hard all day long, and still have waaay more to do than I can possibly get done this evening. There is a lot of hissing going on in my head right now. Those same old lies. And, truth is, I really want to buy into those lies right now. I want to slip into the sweet oblivion of about a million chocolate kisses and a good chick flick. I do not want to fight.

I've been around this track a time or two hundred, and if there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty it is that diets don't work. Oh, it might seem like they work for a while. I might stick with my eating and exercise plan. I might even stick with it for a good while. I might loose a fair amount of weight. But, eventually, I'll be back at the crossroad I'm standing at tonight. The day always comes when I don't want to do it any more. And there won't be enough compliments or enough smaller jeans in the world to outweigh the desire to give in.

Have you ever been there?

A structured eating plan can be a very useful tool to help break poor eating habits and create more healthy habits, but eventually diets loose their luster, life-stress mounts, and it's far to easy to slip back into old patterns and old 'comforts'. That's why I'm so glad, so incredibly thankful, that these past weeks have been about deepening a relationship with my Abba and not about following a diet.

I've not given up any food purely (or even primarily) for the sake of loosing weight or even for the sake of being healthy. What I choose to eat and when I choose to eat it has little to do with those things and everything to do with being closer to my Savior. It's about finding comfort and rest in Him and not in food. At the end of the day (especially a day like today!) it's about trusting that He is right there beside me, offering a rest that far exceeded any rest I might temporarily feel from a vat of chocolate and a dozen chick flicks. He's never stood me up before, and he's not going to change. Ever. And, unlike diets that loose their charm over time, my Father only grows more beautiful the longer I love Him.

I choose Him.

when the new year's off and running

2012-01-02T09:56:00.004-05:00

How do you set your goals for the new year? I used to make the requisite list of 'New Year's Resolutions' that, predictably, ended up going out the window after just a few weeks. I've discovered that what works best for me is to set one, over-arching theme for my year. A main focus that my smaller, individual goals fit into and that I can meditate on all year long. I've found that I end my year with a feeling of accomplishment and gratitude as I look back over the past 12 months and see how God has used that year's theme in the things he has done in and through me.

For three years now I've named my new year. First came the year of Searching for Beauty and then the year of Embracing Every Moment.

This year, my goals can be summarized by a list of people I want to love better: my family, my friends, my church, my unsaved neighbors. Not a fuzzy, warm feeling of 'love', but a lived-out love. An intentional love that walks itself out in purposeful strides toward others.

I really like this definition of love that I read recently: Love is a desire for, and a delight in, the well being of the one loved leading to active and self-sacrificing efforts on their behalf.

So, with all that in my mind & heart, I've named 2012 the year of Loving with My Shoes On.

Do you have a word for your year? What do you want to accomplish for God? What are you praying that God will accomplish in you?

1/1/12

2012-01-01T00:13:00.007-05:00

12:12 a.m.

Happy New Year from our crazy (& sleep-deprived) family :o)

{Thomas made it to midnight but was waay too tired to have his picture taken.}

12/31/11

2011-12-31T23:47:00.004-05:00

11:45 p.m.

decorating snazzy glasses to wear into the new year

12/31/11

2011-12-31T22:46:00.008-05:00

10:46 p.m.

Time for a bit of a breather.

DS games for Phil & the biggies and a 'soft place to lay' for Thomas who's getting tired, but only stayed down for 5 minutes . . . aaaand more caffeine for Mama :O)

12/31/11

2011-12-31T22:14:00.003-05:00

10:00 p.m.

creating gingerbread wonderland ♥ ♥

12/31/11

2011-12-31T22:12:00.005-05:00

8:30 p.m.

'singing loud for all to hear' - my boys are great Christmas cheer spreaders . . . watching Elf :o)

12/31/11

2011-12-31T19:14:00.004-05:00

7:10 p.m.

do dishes one last time for the year . . . check :o)

12/31/11

2011-12-31T17:05:00.002-05:00

4:45 p.m.

homemade pizza for dinner

12/31/11

2011-12-31T15:09:00.003-05:00

2:45 p.m.

nap time

12/31/11

2011-12-31T15:02:00.004-05:00

1:40 p.m.

bike race!

12/31/11

2011-12-31T13:18:00.005-05:00

11:06 a.m.

Today is gorgeous, so we took the boys to a park. I could not believe how high Thomas let Daddy push him in the swing! He was flying!

12/31/11

2011-12-31T13:11:00.007-05:00

I saw something on pinterest recently about using photographs to document your last day of 2011 & first day of 2012 in pictures. Sounded fun to me. Let's see how far I get. . .

9:47 a.m.

There's this little restaurant in Youngsville that the boys have been dying to try. We drive past it whenever we go anywhere and invariably one of them asks, 'Can we go to Griffins today? Pleeeze?!'

Today was the day.

Good, down-home cookin' and they were so.full when we finished. :o)

.

December 25

2011-12-26T09:34:00.003-05:00

Merry, Merry Christmas ♥

December 24

2011-12-24T20:56:00.005-05:00

Before & After

Today my sweet hubby gave me my Christmas gift.

He dug and leveled the red dirt and laid the brick pavers I've been wanting under the clothesline for a looong time. I don't think the clerk at L*wes thought it was a very good gift - he rolled his eyes and laughed when we bought them - but I am super happy with my hubby's gift. Thanks, Sweetie! ♥

December 23

2011-12-23T13:25:00.006-05:00

The temps have been up and down here in NC. This week they are up. Yesterday, for example, was around 70 and we went caroling in our shirt sleeves :o) Today I noticed that my rosemary is blooming. What an unexpected bit of beauty for December 23rd!

December 22

2011-12-22T22:12:00.006-05:00

Made these to hand out when we went caroling with our Care Group from church tonight. Matthew helped me and we made a great memory decorating them together :o)

December 10-21

2011-12-22T17:00:00.010-05:00

Whaaat?!!

It's December 22 already! My poor December Photo Project has been victim to my other busy-ness. I've been helping all the men of the household wrap up school for the semester, finishing some handmade Christmas gifts, braving the line at the post office and attending a few Christmas get-togethers.

Kinda like you have been, I'm sure :O)

Consider this a catch-up post.

December 9th

The weather has been so mild this month. The boys found our bubbles, which I'd put away at the end of summer and had a grand time blowing them on the deck. Zeke didn't know what to think!

December 13th

Phil's employers have a great, family-oriented Christmas party every year. This year the party was at a restaurant / bowling alley in Raleigh. This is the only picture I got - I was too busy rolling my ball into the gutter to take more :O) The boys had a blast. It was Thomas' first time bowling, and even 1 pin knocked down sent him into squeals of victory.

December 16th

The last stitch is sewn & I gladly hand over my stack of packages addressed to family across the country and around the world. Of course I took lots of pics of the things I made, but if I show them to you now I'd have to kill you. . . and I like you too much to kill you :o)

December 18th

Aren't Christmas secrets fun! I love that the boys are old enough to create their own secrets.

December 19th

We put gifts under the tree early this year. By 'early', I mean before Christmas Eve. Since we're out of the baby stage we figured it was time to work on the boys' self control. Besides, isn't pondering the contents of packages a great part of the magic of Christmas ♥

December 20th

We delivered bags of my yummy homemade Caramel Corn to the neighbors as a family. It was so much fun. . . I think we'll make it a tradition!

December 8

2011-12-08T19:47:00.006-05:00

Today we got out this manger scene for the first time this Christmas and were surprised when this guy came tumbling out along with the shepherds and wise men. Thomas was thrilled and spent a lot of time today playing with the set. Hulk has stayed close by, 'protecting baby Jesus from missiles', I'm told.

December 7

2011-12-07T23:45:00.005-05:00

I always make it a point this time of year to say 'Merry Christmas' to cashiers and service people when I'm out and about. I try not to be obnixious about it, but I want to make it clear that I am celebrating Christmas and not just a 'Happy Holiday'. When we lived in the north, I found that most often people responded to me with words like 'you too' or 'same to you' instead of actually saying the words 'Merry Christmas'.

In the south, though it's different. As long as I say it to them first, people seem willing - even happy - to say 'Merry Christmas' back to me.

A woman in our ABF at church prints these on her computer and was handing them out on Sunday. I wore mine all day today as I did my Once a Month shopping. I was curious to see if it would change teh way people reacted to me. If they would take the initiative to approach me with a Christmas greeting or not.

I'd have to say it didn't seem to make any difference. No one said 'Merry Christmas' to me first, though they seemed willing as always to repeat it back to me if I said it. Very interesting.

What wearing this tag did do, though, was make me extremely aware of Who I was representing. I don't think I acted any differently than I usually would, but I was keenly aware that my association with Christ was on display for all to see. Maybe I should wear a sign like this more often.

my favorite WW II veteran

2011-12-07T23:24:00.007-05:00

On this Pearl Harbor anniversary I did some remembering. I visited Pearl Harbor on my senior trip at the end of high school. I will never forget how solemn and awe-filled it was to stand in the memorial with the water lapping around me.

I also thought about my Grandpa A. today. He and my Grandma are a real-life war romance. A church full of people they didn't know, near where he was stationed, worked together to give them a beautiful wedding shortly before he shipped overseas.

Grandpa A. is my favorite person ever. He went home to Heaven 8 years ago this past November and I miss him so much. One of the great sorrows of my life is that he never met my boys. He would have enjoyed them. He was the kind of man I hope my boys become: strong and gentle, wise and tender. A leader who isn't afraid to cry. And he had the best laugh and a wonderful, deep voice. Even as he aged, his voice stayed rich and strong. I loved to hear him sing, which he did often. I'm pretty sure he still does. Can't wait to hear his voice again!

December 6

2011-12-06T18:55:00.004-05:00

When I was a girl we grew each of these in our yard

and they still make the yummiest fruit salad :o)

don't forget your garbage man

2011-12-06T09:18:00.007-05:00

Daniel sitting in Daddy's garbage truck

The most difficult job Phil ever had was as a garbage man. {Yes, I know 'garbage man' isn't the politically correct title :O} It paid well, but not nearly what it was worth in time, exhaustion and the toll it took on the family. He worked insanely long hours, was always dangerously exhausted (I was worried he'd have an accident because he was dead on his feet!) and we never saw him. He started in the summer time and soon learned that he needed to take gallons of water & Gatorade with him every day if he wanted to keep up the pace without passing out. He staggered home after the kids were asleep, ate his one real meal for the day and dropped into bed for a few hours before starting his next shift. In two months time he dropped 40 lbs!

I'm not saying that all sanitation workers have such a difficult route as Phil did, but let's face it - picking up other people's stinky trash for a living isn't a wonderful experience. One of the things that was a huge encouragement to Phil on that job was when customers would leave thank-you notes, cans of soda, snacks, even gift cards clearly marked for him and set out next to their weekly pick-up. As you make your list of people to love and serve this Christmas season, may I suggest that you add your garbage man to the list? You'll probably never know how encouraging it is to those hard-working men to get a 'thank you'!

Strategy: Remember which journey you're on

2011-12-05T12:51:00.008-05:00

The 'holiday season' makes this food v God thing really challenging. As if it wasn't already challenging enough :O) My routines and 'safe' places regarding how I deal with food are being invaded by hot cocoa and tree-shaped marshmallows, candy thrown from parade floats, and Christmas get-togethers. And all those things are great. Really. But they put me in a tough place. Not just for the added temptations they bring, but for the 'gray' areas they put me in. Situations where the 'right' thing to do doesn't seem as clear-cut as I wish it was. Don't get me wrong - I'm not falling of the wagon {or is it 'the sleigh'?}. I'm not indulging in every treat that comes my way, but I definitely feel a bit off-balance and threatened.

Can I tell you something else? I've been loosing weight. I've said this journey wasn't about the weight. And it wasn't. It's still not. But, let's face it, loosing weight is fun. Watching the numbers on the scale drop is fun. Fitting into smaller clothes is fun. Actually liking how I look in our Christmas picture is fun. Getting compliments from others who are noticing that I'm slimmer is fun. Maybe too much fun. And I've found myself starting to be motivated more than I'm comfortable with by the numbers and my reflection in the mirror.

So last night God and I had a serious chat by the Christmas tree. I want to constantly remember that this is a spiritual journey. I think it's really dangerous to forget that! He is the reason I'm on this journey. And I don't want to get sidetracked by the whirl of holiday fun and my smaller jeans! Getting healthier is great. Diets have their place and exercise is beneficial, but I don't want to forget that the battles I'm facing are ultimately spiritual battles. My destination is my Abba's heart. If I get to go shopping for smaller clothes along the way, that's nice, but I've got my eye on a far more precious prize!

What sidetracks you from your journey to God's heart?

December 4

2011-12-04T21:54:00.006-05:00

Lots of sewing going on in my little craft closet-room right now. Christmas gifts for people I love slowly taking shape whenever I can steal a few moments to sneak in there.

December 3

2011-12-03T19:39:00.003-05:00

Today our family took in the Christmas parade in our little town. It was great! Short enough to hold the boys' interest and plenty of the one ingredient that makes a parade a success:: candy! :o) It's hard to choose, but I'd have to say this pic is one of my favorites from the day.

December 2

2011-12-02T22:03:00.005-05:00

DPP - Day 1

2011-12-02T09:40:00.007-05:00

December kinda snuck up on me! But I'm excited that it's here because that means it's time for the December Photo Project again. This is my third year doing the DPP and I really enjoy creating this photographic record of my Christmas season every year.

This is yesterday's picture. Like I said, December snuck up on me and I didn't realize until I was in bed last night that I hadn't posted a picture for the day :o)

This is one of the {many, many} things Thomas told me yesterday:

'Look, Mommy! I'm a snake in a Santa hat!'

Lie: But it's the holidays!

2011-11-29T11:19:00.010-05:00

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was great. And gluten-free :o) On Thanksgiving day we hosted another family, friends from The Gambia. They brought a traditional African dish to share, Peanut Butter Stew, and we had a really nice time. Then on Saturday we attended a Thanksgiving fellowship meal hosted by the Chinese group at our church. They had traditional American fixin's alongside some delicious Chinese food (which probably wasn't gluten-free :o). That was a lot of fun too, even though I can't make any sense of Mandarin.

And I am pleased to say that I did well with my eating. I did eat some grain and even a bit of sugar, but I did not go overboard on anything. And I came away from the weekend more determined than ever to not make this holiday season all about what I'm putting in my mouth.

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, this was in our Sunday paper:

And it struck me as a sad commentary on the idolatrous bent of my heart toward food. How very often have I put my trust in pie? Or, more accurately, chocolate? Trusting the well-known candy bar's wrapper that shouts that it 'Satisfies'.

Last week I saw someone holding a McD's cup. The Christmas version, apparently. Have you seen it? It wasn't so much the festive red graphics but the slogan that caught my eye: Celebrate Season's Cravings. And it shocked me to see it in writing, but how often have I done exactly that? Made the holiday season a reason to indulge in too much food. Like somehow the stretch of calendar between Thanksgiving (or even Halloween) and New Year's means I can turn off my 'do-right-er' and just eat whatever I want whenever I want to.

This year, I'm looking forward to celebrating the season in freedom. To giving thanks to God alone instead of dividing my worship between Him and food . To celebrating the giving of God's ultimate gift in the advent of Christ without the distraction of constant munching.

Have you thought about this? How can you make your Christmas season less about food?

eating the Great Barrier Reef

2011-11-25T10:20:00.007-05:00

This semester the boys & I are learning about Australia in a unit study that I wrote. We are having lots of fun! A couple of weeks ago we studied the Great Barrier Reef and I thought it would be fun to make edible oceans & reefs.

Blue jello made the ocean, and once it was semi-jelled, we created our reefs. They were works of art! Rainbow Twizzlers made the perfect coral, and the little gummy fish peeking out from behind the reef were adorable. We let the jello finish jelling and then ate our handiwork (I gave Phil mine :O)

Thomas' coral was a bit overgrown :o)

The biggies' finished product

This was such a fun activity!

Thanksgiving memories {a repost}

2011-11-23T22:01:00.007-05:00

My Mom was so creative as she raised us in a foreign country. She wanted us to respect and appreciate the country we lived in, but also to have a sense of identity as Americans.

One of the ways she did this was our annual celebration of Thanksgiving. There were no relatives to get together with; no turkey to eat; and the weather was still relentlessly hot and sticky. But each year when the last Thursday in November rolled around, we celebrated anyway. We researched the first Thanksgiving celebrations and then had our own version of that first Thanksgiving - our annual 'Pilgrim and Indian Day'.

We bobbed for apples (my favorite activity), had archery contests with my brothers' bows and arrows {gifts from the people in Timbai}, and participated in wrestling contests {otherwise known as 'Dog-pile on Daddy'}. We also had a corn-husking contest, which was really just Mom's way of getting us to help her get the corn ready for our meal.

Our Thanksgiving meal - which we ate out on our lawn - consisted of a roasted chicken, cornbread, corn on the cob, and other vegetables. For desert, we ate little 'pumpkin' tarts, made with butternut squash bought in the open market.

Of course, no respectable Pilgrim and Indian Day would be complete without the appropriate costumes. Some years, we just made simple headbands with construction paper 'feathers' on them. However, one year Mom decided to go big on the costumes. She made a tall, black hat for Dad and used sewing machine to sew tissue paper bonnets for herself and for me. They were really works of art!

If only the story ended there . . . . but as luck would have it, when we sat down in our yard to eat our dinner that year, proudly decked in our hats, the new neighbor - recently arrived from Australia - came over to the fence to introduce himself.

I can still remember sitting by our picnic, giggling at the sight of my Dad, paper top-hat firmly in place, chatting with that neighbor. I've always wondered what that poor, unsuspecting guy thought of us in all our Pilgrim and Indian Day finery!

*These memories were originally shared as part of a series for Mommy's Piggy Tales, which encourages women to share stories of their childhood for future generations to enjoy. You can read other stories from my trip Down Memory Lane {here}

when you want to see God

2011-11-19T11:18:00.006-05:00

Thomas is in that really fun age where he's absorbing and verbalizing things he's learning about God. It's exciting and makes for some really good (and really funny) conversations.

The other day he was sitting at the table watching me make his lunch when he asked, 'Mommy, who is the only one who can make something out of nothing?'

Of course I said 'God'.
To which he replied, 'Yes! AND Mr. E {his Cubbies teacher}.'

I tried to explain to him that wasn't right, but he wouldn't believe me. 'No, Mommy. Mr. E did say he could make something out of nothing.'

I dropped the subject and mentioned it to Mr E at the next Cubbies. Mr E he assured Thomas that he could NOT create ex nihilo, but from the look in Thomas' eyes I'm not sure he bought it. :O)

Thomas really wants to see God right now. Last week he said to me, 'Mommy, I asked God to make you and me invisible but God didn't say anything.'

When I asked him why he wanted to be invisible he had a simple explanation. 'Invisible can see invisible. If we were invisible then we could see God.' He's mentioned it a couple of times since then, so yesterday I got out our picture Bible and told him the story of when Moses wanted to see God and how it made his face shine.

I LOVE this age! It's so fun to see God through the eyes of your child, and I just hope & pray that his questions and interest in spiritual things will continue as he grows.

In case you're wondering

2011-11-09T07:32:00.004-05:00

Just for the benefit of the maybe 1.5 of you who may be checking and wondering where I am, I'm still here. Still doin' well.

Eating-wise, anyway.

My sweet Thomas shared his cold with me and it's a doozy! I haven't coughed this much in a long, long time. Thankfully germs don't transfer through the screen so ya'll should be safe :o)

I had stuff to say. I really did. But I am currently hovering between stuffy, I-hab-a-cold brain and survival mode. When my brain stops feeling so foggy and I'm able to remember what I wanted to write, I'll be back :o)

Food-free Friday: the war room

2011-11-04T10:35:00.002-04:00

Can I tell you something about this food versus God thing? I'm doing well. Really well. It has not been effortless, but it has been very do-able. Even as I type that I'm shaking my head in wonder. To have come through as many battles and failed as many times as I have in the past, and now to be experiencing so much victory blows my mind. I can't fully explain it, but I know for sure that all the credit goes to God!

I've found it really helpful to write the 'Lie:' posts. There's something empowering about getting the deception out there that weakens its' power to deceive. I hope something I've shared has been helpful to you in recognizing the lies the Deceiver whispers into your own battle.

I love using the imagery of war to think about this journey. I appreciate what Ed Welch has written along those lines:

The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desires is a declaration of all-out war. Actually, the war has been declared. The enemy has already made a preemptive strike; sinful desires already "war against your soul" (I Peter 2:11) We simply need to be awakened by faith to engage in a counterattack.

The problem is that as Christians, we often forget that we are in a war. Or worse, we don't even know that there is a war. Unlike most warfare, where at least we know that there is an enemy somewhere, spiritual warfare tends to be especially covert. No one is getting shot and many people. . . seem to be managing their lives fairly well. It all looks like business as usual. Add to this the fact that we actually like the enemy, and it is easy to understand why many of us act as though we were on vacation. (Addictions: a Banquet in the Grave, pp 226-227)

I've been thinking a lot about the . . .I'm not sure what to call them - weapons? strategies? - things that I'm finding helpful in my battle to chose God over food. I'm realizing that I see more victory in my battles when I have a plan to follow & strategies to defeat the tempter's lies and re-work my own harmful habits and thought patterns. Anyway, I think I'm going to do some blogging about some things that have been helpful to me over the next few weeks.

Can you relate to the idea of weapons and strategies in your spiritual struggles? What have you found helpful? Or not helpful?

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T08:44:00.009-04:00

Well, in the end our Halloween included only one costume & candy event since trick-or-treating with the neighbors was cancelled last night. It was cold and raining pretty hard, so the parents made a mutual decision not to go. Staying in was just fine with me since I've got a cold & wasn't feeling the best. The boys were a bit disappointed, but they've got enough candy to keep them sugared up for a good long while. Trust me :o) Instead they watched a guy movie with Phil & I made popcorn.

On Saturday we went to Party on the Block, the event that our church hosts for the church family and community this time each year. The boys - Thomas especially - have looked forward to this party since last year so they were super excited to go.

Thomas was Spiderman. Again. Hey, when you get a good costume you might as well stick with it, right? ;O)

Daniel was a ninja. The miracle of the night for him was that he made it home with his mask and both black gloves.

Matthew wanted to be Iron Man REALLY badly. I found a red costume at the Goodwill which Phil and I re-fashioned. Matthew made his own mask by covering a blue plastic mask we already had in red paper. It was pretty neat. He was thrilled with the results.

The coolest part was something that no one got to see. Matthew also customized the inside of the mask. Cool, huh!

I have not eaten any of their loot. Haven't really even been tempted to, which I find amazing. But we did stop at the store on the way home from the party so I could get something just for me.

Wanna know what it was?

Beets & kale for my juicer.

Yep. I know. I am officially one of those weird people ;O)

Lie: It's just sin

2011-10-31T10:52:00.006-04:00

I don't know about you, but that title leaves me a bit chilled. Putting the words 'just' and 'sin' together is awful. But it's exactly how I view sin sometimes.

I often find it far too easy to become cavalier about sin. This is especially true when the sin in question involves a pet idol, say food. There are times when a food-related sin genuinely sneaks up on me, but I think most often I go into it with my eyes wide open. I know what I'm doing is a sin - I may have even planned and plotted to commit the sin - and yet I do it anyway. It's 'just' food and I want it and, besides, God will forgive me for it anyway, right? And I toss around the word 'sin' in my mind - even in conversations - like it means nothing.

But really?

Could I share this with you:

The first time I saw this, I watched it through the lens of the ways that I willingly - even eagerly - sin every day. Especially the things I think I just have to eat. And it broke my heart.

And I wondered

What is there EVER that seems worth more to me than His pain?

That would cause me to value His agony and His sacrifice so very little?!

The only perfect man who ever lived. . . the Son . . . my truest Friend . . . the One who loved me when I was indifferent to him and Who loves me beyond words - still - after every way that I have been unfaithful to him -- my sin cost that man his life. My sin caused my Savior the agony of separation from his Father.

If only we could be gripped by that thought each and every time we come to bow at the altar of our favorite idol! If only sin's reality would loom large in my mind whenever I think about finding pleasure and comfort in food instead of in Him. Seems to me that the impact of that truth would turn our chocolate-covered acts of defiance and rebellion to sawdust in our mouths.

What ways do you minimize sin?

cold

2011-10-30T13:55:00.008-04:00

It is cold here. This morning there was frost on the grass and bits of ice on the deck for the first time. To clarify, I am not complaining. This is what I think fall should feel like and I love it . . . but I have realized just how much thinner my blood must have become since our move out of Wisconsin a couple of years ago because I am freezing!

Yesterday was in the low 50s, cloudy with a bit of wind and we f.r.o.z.e through Matthew's soccer game. Here's the gang all bundled up::

And one of Matthew 'cause we don't want to leave him out ;o) He has improved so much this season! There is just one game left in the fall season.

We are still celebrating Halloween, so I'll have to post about that later. Party on the Block was a lot of fun last night {and if you're wondering NO I didn't eat ANY candy. Wait 'till you see what I did get, though ;o) } Tomorrow night we are going trick-or-treating with some of our neighbors. I figure what better way to build that relationship than to let our kids haul us around collecting candy ;o)

thoughts on Halloween

2011-10-26T07:52:00.007-04:00

I'm sure you know what BIG event is less than a week away. It'd be pretty hard to miss it {unless your favorite store has already buried the costumes in piles of Christmas stuff. I know a couple around here that have!} Aaanyway, Halloween is zooming up.

Halloween: the first in a series of end-of-the-year holidays to navigate my way through.

Here at our house we have an Iron Man (hopefully! - still working on that costume), a ninja, and one who doesn't care how he's dressed just as long as he gets to enjoy the inflatables & games at Party on the Block {our church's yearly harvest festival} and come home with lots of candy.

Me? I've been plotting and scheming about how to avoid the candy. I talked to a neighbor who's lived in her house over 10 years and she says trick-or-treaters don't come down our street, so I think I can safely avoid buying a huge bag of candy to give away. Thank you, Lord, for one temptation avoided!

With three boys in the house, though, rest assured that there will be plenty of candy around. I have been sugar-free for over 2 months, and I don't want to fall off the proverbial 'wagon' over a bit of Halloween candy!

What are your thoughts on Halloween candy? Are you making plans to avoid it or scheming to pilfer as much of it as possible from the kids? :o)

I've done it!

2011-10-21T07:22:00.000-04:00

I have set this post to remain at the top of the page for a few days. Please scroll down to see other posts. Thanks!

NOTE: The search box & archive list, etc from the sidebar have moved to the bottom of the blog.

After close to 5 years of blogging I have decided to change the name of my little blog. This is a change I have been mulling over for some time, and I am excited to have finally come up with a name that I love.

'A Small Flame' is a name inspired by a quote from A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God:

'Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.'

Tozer's description of his book expresses the way I view the things that I share on this blog. Not new or novel, but an honest telling of my journey toward the Father's heart, told both to fan my own flame of love for the One who is making me into his image and to {hopefully} light a candle for a fellow-traveler.

10/17/2011

Food-Free Friday - I {heart} Virginia

2011-10-21T07:00:00.007-04:00

I love fall! As a girl I lived in the tropics and we had two seasons - wet and dry. Or, as my Mom liked to say, hot and hotter. If I seem overly in love with Fall now, well, maybe it's because I'm making up for lost time. Yeah. Let's go with that ;o)

I loved fall in Wisconsin, and I enjoy fall in North Carolina (though the fall air here usually lacks that crisp bite I loved in Wisconsin). But I adore fall in Virginia. The year we moved to NC, the kids & I took a trip back north to visit family & friends. This meant two long October drives through VA and West Virginia, and I was hooked. Last year and again this year my hubby has taken us to Virginia for a day. We drive up, eat lunch, and spend a few hours enjoying the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive home again.

That's what we did one day this week and it was beautiful! A sun-drenched globe of rich color with leaves twirling and spinning around us. Absolutely gorgeous! Had a worship service right there in my mini van seat. Why in the world would I ever think I needed food to make Fall ?!

Read this in Psalm 65 yesterday. So fitting, don't you think?

You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

Take a peak out the window. . . or better yet step outside. Rain or shine, I bet God drenching his world with beauty as a love-gift - just for you. Enjoy!

Lie: If I could just be thin. . .

2011-10-16T22:24:00.006-04:00

Years ago in my Oprah-watching days ;o) I saw a show that has stuck with me ever since. The guests on the show had all undergone gastric surgery in a desperate attempt to loose weight. And it worked. Each of the guests were significantly smaller than they had been before the surgery. But they were on the show because, after the surgery, each of them had developed some other harmful behavior pattern. These former over-eaters were now thin alcoholics, gamblers, shopaholics and sex addicts. And their lives and the lives of those they loved were being destroyed by these new 'addictions'.

I found the show both fascinating and heart-breaking. These precious people had bought a lie. The same lie that I buy sometimes. Maybe you do too? The 'If I could just be thin' lie.

'If I could just be thin. . . then people would love me
. . . then I'd feel beautiful
. . . then everything else would go right
. . If I could just be thin, then I would be happy.

That lie was destroying their lives. The out-of-control eating was merely a symptom of a much deeper heart condition. The surgery may have made it inconvenient for the show's guests to binge on food, but it did nothing to solve the real problem. So, of course, the heart-sins simply began to manifest themselves in other out-of-control behaviors.

This morning I read Psalm 63:

'O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.'

I love the imagery in these verses! I was especially struck by the part in bold: meditating on who God is and what he has done satisfies my soul's hunger.

I am finding that to be so very true as I walk away from food & toward God.

Here's something good I read in Made to Crave this past week:

Over-stuffing ourselves with food or drink until we get drunk or getting wrapped up in the affections of an adulterous relationship are all desperate attempts to silence the cries of a hungry soul. . .

Our souls have [a] ravenous intensity. . . that's how God created us - with a longing to be filled. It's a longing God instilled to draw us into deep intimacy with Him. . . Our souls are thirsty and ravenous vacuums. If we fail to understand how to fill our souls with spiritual nourishment, we will forever be triggered to numb our longings with other temporary physical pleasures. When those pleasures are food, the resulting behavior is what we often hear referred to as 'emotional eating'. But this issue is bigger than emotions; it's really about spiritual deprivation. (pp 128-129)

The only true change is heart change!

Psalm 63 is a great passage to meditate on and pray back to God as you seek heart change! I have very similar words (the beginning of Psalm 84) written on one of my prayer cards and I often pray that the words would become increasingly true in my life:

'My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.'

What fills your soul-hunger?

Food-Free Friday:: Pumpkins

2011-10-14T09:28:00.011-04:00

One of the things I love about Fall is the pumpkins.... and they don't have to be a food item. Especially when they look like this:

Phil is the jack-o-lantern artist in our home. The first year or two we were married, I did some pumpkin-ating {that's pumpkin+decorating ;o) }. For instance, there was the year my Martha-inspired self drilled little holes all over a pumpkin and pushed white lights through each little hole. It ruined the string of white lights, but it sure was pretty! These days I gladly let my hubby carve his masterpieces and hand him the candles when he's done.

The farm where we buy our pumpkins also has little squash & pumpkins for sale, so I usually pick out a few.

This year they're sitting pretty on my kitchen window sill.

A friend gave me this adorable salt & pepper shaker set

I also picked this up a few weeks ago at the Sharing Shop. When the candles inside them are lit the beads shimmer & glow. It's lovely.

Do you decorate for fall? What are your favorite fall decorations?

if you tire of soul-tinkering

2011-10-11T10:33:00.007-04:00

I'm listening to The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer right now as I work around the house. I think I read it once years ago, but am so enjoying it right now!

Love this quote. It rings absolutely true to my own experience as I journey away from food & toward God.

'Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. . . While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves - blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do... Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line.'

moment:: pirates!

2011-10-09T22:27:00.000-04:00

You don't raise heroes, you raise sons.
And if you treat them like sons,
they'll turn out to be heroes,
even if it's just in your own eyes. ~ Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

. . . . or, in my case, pirates ♥

Lie: 'Look at those numbers!'

2011-10-08T13:59:00.003-04:00

Would you think I was crazy if I told you that getting on the scale is a spiritual decision? {You already think I'm crazy, don't you? ;o) }

It is amazing to me that the father of lies can use one little square of metal and plastic to conjure up so many different lies.

See, it's not really about the number on the scale. I've had that number 'make' me fall when it went up and when it went down and even when it went no where at all.

Have you had this happen? I step on the scale, close my eyes and then slide one open just a bit to see ###. And almost immediately his hiss begins. 'Look at that number! All that self-denial and it didn't move. Not one. little. bit. Why bother any more? Let the party begin!'

....... or, 'Look at that number! Are you kidding me?! You were so. good. all week and it's GONE UP! Forget this! You'll never be free anyway. Let's just go party.'

..... or, 'Look at that number! It's lower than last time! Even though you over-ate yesterday. Huh. Well, goody! You can eat two treats today then. Matter of fact, let's just party all week long 'cause you're gonna loose weight anyway.'

What a passel of lies!

Sooo, having been around this track a time or twenty, I've learned something. That innocent, little square of metal & plastic is anything but harmless! I have learned to approach even getting on it with caution. Some time ago, when I realized that I often thoughtlessly step on the scale out of habit, I moved it out of the bathroom. Now it lives under a piece of furniture in another room. Now I have to make an intentional effort in order to weigh myself. And I've learned to only make that effort after careful thought and prayer. I don't step on that scale unless I first ascertain that my focus and heart are steadfast. No matter what the number is, I don't want it to shake my commitment to honor God.

What's your experience with this? Does stepping on your scale help or hinder your relationship with God?

Food-Free Zone

2011-10-07T09:13:00.006-04:00

Food is part of everything. Have you noticed that? Celebrations, holidays, dates, seasons, church functions, catching up with old friends or getting to know new friends - it all involves food. Subtract food from any of these 'equations' and you're left feeling awkward & grasping for ideas of what else to do.

I don't think it's automatically wrong to include food in our events and interactions, but it's hard to know where to draw the line. At least it is for me.

With fall here {my favorite baking season} and the holidays just around the corner, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what place food will have in our celebrations this year. I've got some ideas, but the nitty-gritty will have to be figured out as I go through the next weeks and months.

With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to have an intentional time to blog about my emerging thoughts on this. I'm planning to do this on Fridays {you know I couldn't pass up the perfect chance to illiterate ;o) }. I'm hoping to focus especially on enjoying this special time of year without food.

Are your brain cells firing yet? What food-free ways do you celebrate?

Tuesday Tidbits

2011-10-04T13:31:00.001-04:00

A bit of life in our part of the world......

With three very active boys, you would think that we would have a permanent spot reserved in the closest ER. But, thankfully!, God has graciously allowed that to NOT be the case. Late last week, though, we got a taste of what life could be like when Matthew came, crying and bleeding profusely, from the neighbor's trampoline where his lip had had an unfortunate meeting with another boy's foot. When we got him cleaned up a bit, Phil & I both knew immediately that his lip would require stitches to heal properly. We loaded up and drove in to urgent care. Phil stayed with the other boys in the waiting room while Matthew & I headed into the back. It was rather traumatic for Matthew (& for Mom), but we both survived and Matthew is the dubiously proud possessor of 3 stitches. It's healing nicely and is a great story to tell, now that it's over ;o)

Fall is my very favorite time of year. I always marvel at God's grace-gift in making the death of thousands of leaves look so breathtakingly beautiful. We recently took a drive to our favorite pumpkin farm to pick out our annual supply. We've gone to the same little privately-owned farm each fall since we moved to NC, and it's always so much fun. We came home with a hay bale (which made me want to sneeze all the way back) and several pumpkins & squash. Hopefully we'll get them carved this week while the whole family is on Fall Break.

When the biggies were small and we watched a lot of Thomas the Train, the phrase 'you're a very useful engine' was one we heard often. Phil started a joke that he was a 'very useful husband' when he fixed something or took care of some problem around the house. Well, I've got to tell you that he's just becoming more and more useful, that husband of mine ;o) Since we built our deck, I have been wanting a table out there so we could have meals & enjoy our lovely back yard. A couple of weeks ago Phil decided to build me a table and he finished it a few days ago. It's great! We discovered that the benches he made a couple of months ago are the perfect size to sit at the table. We've still got to out a stain or paint on the table, but I'm tickled to have it! The debate currently is whether to paint it a color {Phil is voting for yellow!??} or just stain it (my vote -either chocolate or something light & closer to the wood color). Anyone want to weigh in?

My baby turned FOUR this past weekend! He was super excited to turn four and we've had several conversations about how far superior four is to three. Apparently four is just a step away from superhero status ;o) I have not, however, been able to convince him that four year olds don't suck their thumbs. *sigh* We may have to resort to more dramatic tactics for that one.

We're loving the newest member of the family! Zeke has settled in quite nicely and has finished training to stay inside the invisible fence. This means he's able to have much more freedom than he had on his cable run. This is one of his favorite ways to spend his time.....

Happy Hole-Diggin' Tuesday!

Lie: 'He can't be trusted.'

2011-10-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

When I was 5, my family spent a week in Hong Kong on our way back to the U.S. for our missionary furlough. It was very different from the quiet little town I had lived in until that point! Early in our visit, my dad made a passing comment about the (then distant future) take-over of Hong Kong by China. My over-active imagination took that comment and ran with it. I was convinced that the Communists (who I 'knew' vaguely and imagined as very bad men) were taking over Hong Kong right. then.

I was terrified!

I would lay in bed in our hotel room, trembling, as I listened to the frequent sirens and noise that are part of every big city (though I didn't know that). I thought about what I would do if the bad men suddenly burst through our door. How could I protect my baby brothers and my parents? I was so relieved when we finally loaded our suitcases into a taxi and headed to the airport for our flight to California! I can remember scooting down in my seat so that the invading army would not see me as we drove to freedom.

My purpose for telling this story is not to prove what a strange little girl I was ;0} but to describe a way of thinking that has always been a part of who I am. To me, the oddest thing about my Hong Kong story is that I never once talked to my parents about how I felt. They had no idea how scared I was and why. If they had, they could have reassured me; helped me see how wrong I was. They could have comforted me. But I thought it was up to me to take care of myself.

Fast forward quite a few years later, and I've learned a lot about how important it is to build strong relationships with people who will 'do' life with me! I've also realized that this 'lone ranger' mindset has a huge impact on how I interact with food. I still think it's up to me to take care of myself. If I've had a hard day, if I'm lonely, if I'm frustrated or afraid or sad. . . it's still my job to take care of myself. To make myself feel 'better'. To give myself the rest, the company, the comfort, the security, the {fill in the blank} that I am missing. So I eat. Food is always waiting for me with open 'arms' and somehow in the moment I rarely remember what a fickle friend it is.

I didn't realize just how pervasive this 'take-care-of-myself' mindset was until we became a seminary family. As I watched God provide for our needs time and again, often in ways we could not have anticipated, I was struck by how often I turn to food instead of to Him to meet the needs I felt at a particular time.

And, as odd as it sounds, I was afraid to change. Fearful to turn to God instead of food after a hard day. I think I had an unspoken fear that He would stand me up. That I would drag myself away from the Oreos only to find that He wasn't there for me. So I told him that. I shared my fears with my Abba and said, 'OK, Father. If you want me to turn to you instead of to food for comfort and rest, then please be there. Please don't just leave me standing there holding my stinky day!' And can I tell you that He never has.

He. never. has.

He always shows up when I seek him instead of chocolate.

Isn't that awesome?!

Lie: But I Have to Eat

2011-09-30T18:09:00.001-04:00

Want to know the current winner in my 'longest believed lie' contest? The one I have honestly believed for YEARS?

It goes something like this: 'A food 'addiction' (I use that term loosely) is so hard because I have to eat to live. At least with an alcohol or drug addiction I could just get rid the stuff out completely. I can't do that with food.'

Have you ever heard that? Said that, even?

I honestly believed it for years. Probably because, as most insidious lies do, it contains a bit of truth. I can't just stop eating completely. Not unless I want to move to heaven sooner rather than later ;o) But the lie that slips in with the truth is that all food is equal. The whole truth is that, while I do have to eat to live, the food that calls empty promises of comfort and tempts me most to loose self-control is not the food I need to live. Seriously. Carrot sticks never call my name after a bad day!

Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible to sin while eating only healthy food. Issues of self control and seeking pleasure and comfort from something other than God are heart issues, and they can rear their ugly heads in the middle of the healthiest meal. But recognizing this lie for what it is was a huge revelation to me! By cutting out the foods that tempt me most, I not only get rid of the least nutritious food, but I also make it easier to develop self control.

How 'bout you? Believed any sneaky half-truths lately?

spelling

2011-09-29T11:59:00.008-04:00

The humidity has finally gone away again & the fall sunshine filtering through our bit of forest is making it hard to stay inside. I decided it was much too nice a day to do spelling indoors, so we took it outside.

All the letters to spell our words were found 'growing' in the sand box and the boys took turns picking the letters they needed for a word

Then the letters were passed along to the other brother who 'planted' them in a pot so that they spelled the word correctly.

Now, what other excuses can I think of to be outdoors. . . . .

More Grain-Free Pizza Adventures

2011-09-24T20:43:00.005-04:00

A friend recently tagged me on pinterest with a recipe for cauliflower pizza crust.

Cauliflower.

I'm becomming convinced that the stuff is a grain-free girl's best friend ;o)

Still, cauliflower pizza crust sounded a bit scary.

BUT.....

Blogger is acting up, so
imagine there's a picture of a yummy slice of pizza here ;o)

{photo credit}

I made it tonight and it was AMAZING!

Great taste, the right consistency, and lighter than the almond flour crust I typically make.

I used a recipe (found here) that claims to be the 'original' cauliflower pizza crust, but I made a few modifications after I read through the comments on the site.

Cauliflower. Who knew?

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

TO PREPARE CAULIFLOWER:

Steam 1 heaping cup cauliflower florets for 10 minutes (fresh) or according to package directions
(frozen).

When cooled enough to handle, rice the cauliflower. You can do this by grating the cauliflower or (the quick & easy way) buzzing it in the food processor. Just be careful not to mash it. You definitely want that 'rice' consistency.

Squeeze as much of the excess water as possible out of the cauliflower. The easiest way to do this is to put the cauliflower in a square of cheese cloth & squeeze. I got a LOT of water out!

TO MAKE CRUST:

In a medium bowl, combine:

riced, squeezed cauliflower
1 egg
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Press the cauliflower mixture onto a cookie sheet that is well-sprayed with non-stick spray to form a 8-9 inch circle.

Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes (12 was plenty for me!).

Remove pan from oven & immediately run a spatula around under the crust to loosen it from the pan. A lot of people complained that the crust had still been soggy in the middle, so I flipped the crust over and stuck it back into the oven for another 5 minutes. Mine was NOT soggy.

Top the crust with sauce & toppings of your choice.

Put under the broiler just until cheese is melted.

You'll truly never guess that it's cauliflower!!

Lie: 'You'll Never be Free'

2011-09-24T16:20:00.006-04:00

If there is one thing that I have felt repeated defeat in it would be the area of what I eat. Food is a fickle friend to me. It lures me with its promise of smooth, sugary comfort or crunchy, salty excitement, but the party in my mouth is short-lived compared to the guilt I feel later for having given in - again - or the frustration I feel when my favorite pair of pants gets tighter. Over the years I have gone on repeated diets, only to have each and every one of them end in failure and a pile of chocolate chip cookies.

So when I read this in Made to Crave, my heart shouted a loud 'Amen!'

'Food isn't sinful. But when food is what Satan holds up in front of you and says 'You'll never be free from this battle. You will always bounce from feeling deprived when you're dieting to feeling guilty when you're splurging. Victory isn't possible. You aren't capable of self-control with food,' we must see that its inappropriate consumption can be his lure to draw our hearts into a place of defeat.' (Made to Crave pp 61)

I'm tellin' ya - Lysa writes words that I've heard in my head for soooo long. Maybe we are twins separated at birth! ;o)

Now I don't know if I can come to a place where I have consistent 'victory' over this food thing. I've heard those words of certain defeat hissed into my heart and mind for a looong time. And I've got a pretty well-worn groove in the direction of food, food and more food.

I also know that it is our areas of weakness that God often uses to keep us close to (and dependent upon) him. But whether or not I get decisive 'victory' out of this process, I'm taking the journey. . . and I'm pretty sure that, no matter what else happens, I'm going to learn more about God and see more clearly how I relate to him than I do now.

That makes the journey worth taking!

lyin'

2011-09-22T09:33:00.003-04:00

Have you heard this song by Point of Grace?

It is one of my 'fight songs' right now.

Every time I listen to it, I am struck by its words

How clever is my pride
How it deceives my mind
To think I'm in control
When I've really lost it all

How brilliant is my greed
For what it says I need
And then I've come to find
I'm empty on the inside

It's so true! My heart is deceptive. Man! is my heart deceptive! It regularly tells me lies about food and I. believe. them.

I've come to realize that I really can't trust anything my heart tells me about food right now. Everything has to be run through the sieve of God's word, prayer, and advice from Godly friends. It seems like a lot of work, but I am hoping that as I 'take every thought captive to obey Christ' (2 Corinthians 10:5), that I will develop new, Godly patterns of thinking to replace the old lies.

I'm gonna blog about some of the lies I have believed, but wanted to get your wheels turnin' a bit. What lies do you believe about food? Or a different 'pet idol'?

songs we sing over coffee

2011-09-21T09:08:00.010-04:00

Yesterday I have coffee with a new friend and we talk.
I tell her my story and she tells me hers,
and we find out that we sing similar songs.

We talk about God and the Gospel;
about loving other people
and guarding our hearts against the bitterness that comes
when they betray us,
and. . . .well, lots of stuff ;o)

Today I read this psalm
and my heart sings along :

⁷ I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
⁸and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.

²¹Blessed be the LORD,
for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
when I was in a besieged city.
²²I had said in my alarm,
"I am cut off from your sight."
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
when I cried to you for help.

²³Love the LORD, all you his saints!
The LORD preserves the faithful
but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
²⁴Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the LORD!

-from Psalm 31

"The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God." - Brennan Manning

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

2011-09-19T20:23:00.004-04:00

One of the things I have 'always' wanted to do is spend part of a school year studying about Australia with the boys. Since Phil & I lived there when the biggies were born, both of them have Australian citizenship. They know that and they know that Granny & Grandpa still live there, but that's about the extent of their knowledge of Australia. I looked around quite a bit last year but I couldn't find any curriculum that matched the vision I had in my head. So this past summer I wrote a 15-week unit study on Australia. I had a BLAST writing it, learned things I didn't know and even taught Phil a few facts about Australia. And the school year hadn't even started ;o) We're 4 weeks in to our school year now (working on our 5th), and it has been a fun study.

Each week's lesson includes a hands-on activity or two which the boys are having fun with.... well, OK, I am too ;o) Here's a bit of what we've done so far:

Learned about the Aborigines & created our own dot art

. . . on 'bark' which we made ourselves.

:: the finished product ::

Studied Captain Cook's explorations of Australia & drew our own maps

by Daniel

by Matthew

Read about the first British settlers, including the first preacher Richard Johnson (recruited by William Wilberforce and John Newton), who sailed for 36 weeks (!!!!!) to reach Australia

'First Sermon on Australian Soil' by Matthew

'First Sermon on Australian Soil' by Daniel

Read about Sydney and created our own winning designs for the Sydney Opera House. . . let me tell you - if these boys had designed it you wouldn't have been stuck with boring white 'sails' ;o)

'Hero Factory' by Daniel

'Floating Lego Castle' by Matthew

Studied the Australian flag & designed our own flag that followed the rules for the original flag-design competition. . . well, sorta followed them, anyway ;o)

by Matthew

by Daniel

And that's just the first four weeks . . . ;o)

how to become deaf, dumb and blind

2011-09-18T22:47:00.002-04:00

Phil & I are currently part of a discipleship class at church on addictions. The class is going through the book 'Addictions - a Banquet in the Grave' by Ed Welch. This book has sat on one of our many book shelves for a long time, but I don't think I've ever read it.

It is so good!

Several of the people taking the class have been addicted to drugs or alcohol in the past, and many of them still have friends or family who are enslaved by similar addictions. I don't fit in either category, but I am finding the book extremely practical in my own fight to choose God over food. In fact, this book is an ought-to-read for every believer because addiction is, at it's heart, idolatry. And we all have idols, don't we?

This passage was mentioned in the study last week and I don't ever think I've really noticed it before. (Isn't it funny how that happens?) I was intrigued, so I looked it up. . . and all I could say was 'Wow! Wow! WOW!'

Idols are silver and gold,
made by the hands of men.
They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but they cannot see;
they have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but they cannot smell;
they have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but they cannot walk;
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.
Psalm 115: 4-8

Wow.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to become deaf, dumb, blind, utterly senseless & irrational to my own sin and to my Father-God!

Wow.

declaration of war

2011-09-15T10:28:00.003-04:00

This week I was challenged by these verses :

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. {1 Corinthians 9:24-27}

Ed Welch comments on these verses: 'Paul reiterates that nothing short of a declaration of war will dislodge our favorite idols.' (Addictions - a Banquet in the Grave, pp52)

Isn't that good?

I think I often just give my idols a mild scolding (when I'm not coddling them). Or I might even have a battle with an idol, but I don't go far enough in my efforts. And I haven't prepared myself to endure more than a skirmish or two. I might mean well, but ultimately my efforts fail before the idol is dislodged from my heart.

It's gotta be more than that! It's gotta be WAR!

shoppin' at the Rachel Store

2011-09-15T07:43:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote about finding a couponing system that I could use without driving myself crazy. One of the considerations I had when I was setting up a system was that it needed to mesh well with the way I already do grocery shopping. For the past 6 years I have done our grocery shopping in one, day-long trip every month. While I may need to run in to the store for more fruit or some lettuce during the month, the majority of what we eat every month gets bought on that one, big shopping day.

I also don't have much, if any, wiggle room in our food budget. We always have enough, but I don't have a lot of extra on any given month. That means that I don't have the money to buy lots of coupon deals or great stock-up sale items that I'm not planning to use that month.

When I was growing up, my Mom very effectively tackled the challenge of feeding a family of 6 in a third-world country where store prices were sky-high by creating her own store of items she had picked up at deep discounts. So a few months ago I had a conversation with her about how her system worked, and it seemed like the answer to my dilemma!

My system functions on 2 accounts or caches of money: (1) the money I have to spend on groceries every month and (2) the money I have to spend on coupon deals & other discounted items that I do not currently need.

Starting the 'deals & discounts' account did require that I set aside some seed money at the first. I set aside $50 of my own money (i.e., not from the food budget), but since then, that account does pretty well at replenishing itself.

Each week I make my grocery list, clip the coupons I need and spend an hour or so shopping. These are primarily things we do NOT currently need, but the sale is on that week so that's the time to buy. I use the money from my second account to purchase these items, and because they are not things we need right now I can be picky about what I buy. I try to focus on the deals that are really good - 3 cent peanut butter, 50 cent boxes of cereal, etc. I bring my purchases home, write the prices on the packaging in permanent marker (I also add in the tax I paid), and put them in my 'store', which for lack of space is a couple of boxes in the back of a cupboard (except for frozen items, of course ;o)

When I make my list for my big, monthly shop, I shop from my 'store' first. This month, I bought a large jar of Smucker's Grape Jelly for 31 cents, a box of pasta for 18 cents, ketchup for 52 cents, canned tomatoes for 50 cents, and 3 gallons of milk for under $3 each. I put these 'bought' items on my shelf, cross them off of my shopping list, and figure out my total bill. I subtract that amount away from my total food budget for that month and put it (in cash) into my special 'Couponing' envelope so I can keep taking advantages of sales. If, at any time during the month, we run out of something from shampoo to peanut butter, I check my store first to see if I already have it. This is really helping me to stretch the money! Last month, we decided to have another family over and I fed the 10 of us all the chicken we cared to eat with a few pieces left over for under $4, thanks to a great re-buy from my own freezer.

I'd love to hear your best tip for pinching your pennies!

Couponing

2011-09-14T18:54:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year I decided to try couponing. Again. I have had a couple attempts at serious couponing in the past, but gave up because it was too confusing and too time consuming. But, given that dollar amounts for everything have been going up except the paycheck ;o), I decided it was time to give it another try. I did a bit of research first to see if I could figure out a system that would (1) not further confused my already-muddled brain and (2) take only a minimal amount of time to maintain. It also needed to dove-tail into the way I already do grocery shopping which is in one, major shopping trip a month.

{ credit }

I started my system in June and it is working great! I am very pleased. And, hopefully, I'm gonna be able to share my system without muddling your brain too much ;o)

There are some great couponing websites out there, and I really like this one. In fact, I decided to use her system of organizing. This means that I only cut the coupons I use when I'm going to use them. No more spending an entire afternoon cutting & organizing little slips of paper that I don't end up using!

I also use this website, along with a couple of others, to help me match the coupons I have with the deals at local stores. By letting them do all the 'leg-work', I am able to compile my shopping list in just a few minutes.

Do you coupon? I'd love to get your best tip!

But it's just food. . . right? - Part 2

2011-09-11T20:15:00.004-04:00

The battle between food and God is important to me because it is a battle for self-control.

Again, Lysa Terkeurst:

'If I was honest, my issue was plain and simple - a lack of self-control. I could sugar-coat it and justify it all day long, but the truth was I didn't have a weight problem; I had a spiritual problem. I depended on food for comfort more than I depended on God.' {Made to Crave, pp 89)

Ouch!

and Yep! ;o)

It might seem like having an extra desert at the church potluck or downing a bowl of M&Ms in record time isn't that big of a deal. I've convinced myself of that on more than one occasion! But, according to this verse that's a false perception:

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. {Proverbs 25:28}

I think Jerry Bridges in his book Respectable Sins was the first one to call my attention to the ramifications of this verse.

In the same way that a city without walls was vulnerable to an invading army, so a person without self-control is vulnerable to all kinds of temptations. . . A lack of self-control may well be one of our more 'respectable' sins. And because we tolerate this, we become more vulnerable to other sins.' (Respectable Sins, pp 109-110)

Either I have self control or I don't. I can't pick and choose the areas I will lack self-control in, no matter how often I tell myself that I can! If I don't take the issue of food seriously; if I don't learn to exercise self-control in what I eat, then I leave myself open to being defeated by other, even more destructive sins.

That's pretty serious stuff!

when all else fails . . .

2011-09-08T10:29:00.003-04:00

Recently I read this verse during my devotion time and found it so encouraging.

I have a number of health-related issues that center around adrenal fatigue. If you're not familiar with adrenal fatigue, it is a condition brought on by 'persistent, severe mental and emotional stress', a term that easily describes the trial our family has walked through in our former ministry.

There are a long list of symptoms for adrenal fatigue, and while I don't have them all I have quite a few of them. Most difficult to live with right now are nearly-constant fatigue (even after 9 hours of sleep!) and a very foggy brain that struggles to remember even the simplest of things. In the past I have been used to getting up early, having lots of energy through my day and easily remembering things, so this is a hard change for me.

I am so aware of the way my body fails me on a daily basis right now! Which made reading this verse a timely reminder for me.

Time spent focused on food or even focused on my body for its own sake is time wasted! Time spent focused on God - on building a relationship with him - cannot ever be wasted! He will be my strength and portion long after everything else physical goes!

But it's just food. . . right? - Part 1

2011-09-07T06:10:00.000-04:00

A friend made this comment to me a few months ago:

(I'm realizing) how little I rely on the Lord for peace and contentment as I look to food for fulfillment. If I was getting my "upper" from smoking, drinking, sex, vandalism etc everyone would say that it was wrong. Yet few people, even my Christian friends, think much of eating as a way to feel better let alone that it is on the level of those other things.

It's true, isn't it? Most people have a list of 'bad' addictions. Yours might include things like alcohol, nicotine, pornography, sex, gambling, cocaine, prescription drugs, shoplifting. But food? That's an acceptable addiction. One we can indulge in regularly at church dinners and over fellowship with friends without anyone even batting an eyelash.

But is it really such a big deal? I believe that it IS a big deal, for several reasons, and as I think & read & pray, those reasons become clearer. . .

First, the battle between food and God is important because it is a battle for my heart. Who - or what- do I turn to for comfort? Where do I seek pleasure?

One of the most helpful books I have read on the subject of food as a spiritual issue is Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst. It came out earlier this year and I am currently on my second read-through. She has so many great things to say on this topic and I'm sure I'm gonna quote her a lot in these blog posts. Here's some of what she has to say.....

I believe that God made us to crave. Now before you think this is some sort of cruel joke by God, let me assure you that the object of our craving was never supposed to be food or the other things people find themselves consumed by. . . Consider this expression of craving: 'How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God' (Psalm 84:1-2). We were made to crave - long for, want greatly, desire eagerly, and beg for - God. Only God. But Satan wants to do everything possible to replace our craving for God with something else. . . He knows where we're weak. He desires to lure us away from God. And he knows what works. (Made to Crave pp 21-22)

When I look at it in that light, I realize that the extra brownie or date with a tub of ice cream puts my relationship with God at risk!

It is NOT worth that!

Grain-Free 'Rice'

2011-09-06T11:54:00.006-04:00

I really enjoy rice. When my nutritionist advised me to spend a couple of months earlier this year eating grain-free, I experimented with using cauliflower as a rice substitute. I read a couple of ideas online and tried them, but they weren't very good. One was to leave the cauliflower raw and chop it up finely. I didn't like this at all - it was too crunchy and the temperature wasn't right. I also tried cooked cauliflower but that wasn't right either. It was too soft. *sigh*

I have recently made the decision to go grain-free again, largely for spiritual reasons. I just think it's the best thing right now for my journey towards greater self-control. This past weekend, the family was having one of our favorites - a tomato and beef stroganoff over rice - and the stroganoff was so soupy that it really needed a base. Like rice. What to do?

I decided to try preparing the cauliflower like I do for my grain-free pasta salads and it worked great! I even stir-fried the leftovers today for lunch and again, it was a success. Hooray for a yummy rice substitute!

Cauli-Rice

1. Cut cauliflower into small to medium sized florets.

2. Put in a saucepan with some water (how much depends on how much cauliflower, but I didn't put enough to cover the veg)

3. Bring the water to a boil and let it boil for 1 minute.

4. Cover the pan and turn off the heat. (I have an electric stove so I moved the pan off of the burner too) Let it sit for 3-4 minutes and then drain.

5. Use a potato masher to break up the veg. The cauliflower should not be so soft that it mashes - you're going for little granules like rice. Season and serve as you would rice.

Thomas & Zeke

2011-09-05T17:46:00.005-04:00

Zeke is a Border Collie. Not pure border collie, but he's definitely got it in him. He loves to herd . . . the kids, other dogs at the dog park - it's fascinating to watch.

Thomas is a bit unsure of Zeke and usually keeps out of his way. I figured this was understandable, since he got a few good face-washes from Zeke's tongue the first day we had him. Over the weekend we were at the park and I was holding Zeke's leash. Thomas didn't want to go anywhere near the dog and I was encouraging him. 'It's ok,' I said, 'I've got a hold of his leash - he can't jump on you right now.' Thomas was unconvinced and kept his distance. Then he asked, 'Mom, why is Zeke a hurter? Why does Zeke hurt people? ' At first I didn't understand, but then it dawned on me that Thomas had overheard the conversations between the adults about Zeke's herding tendencies and, not knowing what herding was, had interpreted it as well as his three-year-old vocabulary would let him. Who wouldn't be scared of a dog who was a repeat 'hurter'? ;o)