Jesus is Calling

During chapel a few weeks ago, we sang the following song:

Hark, the voice of Jesus calling,
"Who will go and work today?
Fields are white, and harvests waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?"
Loud and long the Master calleth,
Rich reward He offers you;
Who will answer, gladly saying,
"Here am I; send me today"?

+ + +

If you cannot cross the ocean,
And the heathen lands explore,
You can find the heathen nearer,
You can help them at your door.
If you cannot give your thousands,
You can give the widow's mite;
And the least you give for Jesus,
Will be precious in His sight.

+ + +

Let none hear you idly saying,
"There is nothing I can do",
While the souls of men are dying,
And the Master calls for you.
Gladly take the task He gives you;
Let His work your pleasure be;
Answer quickly when He calleth,
"Here am I. Send me today!"

Lord, help us respond to Your call.

Misplaced Passion

God, Please help me to have passion for you like I have for dance. I love to dance and I miss it, but I don't think always have those same passions for you. Help me Lord to have You as my one true passion.

2011 so far...

I haven't been too consistent with blogging in 2011, but I am still going to keep up, but not be obsessed either. I am doing Beth Moore's Scripture Challenge for the year (memorize one-two verses every fifteen days, posting the update of new passage on her blog the first and fifteenth of every month)

Here is my week plans:
*Food
--lasagna with homemade noodles (from my fresh ground whole wheat flour thanks to my sweet grandparents!)
--Hawaiian meatballs with noodles
--chicken tacos with re-fried beans
--tomato bean soup
--tuna potatoes
*Get Jon's last birthday present
*Continue eating healthier and exercising
*Memorize my passage for Jan. 15th

Today I started my new batch of kefir and am also making homemade vegetable both. I am going to try a homemade banana raspberry bread that is a bit healthier too, freezing the batches so i don't eat it all at once!

God ended our year strong with a blessing of finances that we were able to bless others with, and also had led my husband to take over our finances and he has worked so hard on our budget and spreadsheet! We want to go frugal as possible for 2011 so we can pay of school debt as quickly as we can. We have pretty much decided to not purchase a house (if God ever wants us to that is) until we completely pay off our school loans (or only have a couple thousand left). It is a decision we really don't want to budge on and believe a lot of people have made the mistake of getting more debt before they finish their previous debt.

We went to the shooting range yesterday for our two year anniversary and for our four year anniversary of being together. I shot a WWII mossin nagant sniper rifle, a mossberg maverick 88 shotgun, and a Sis P229. All I have to say is that it was pretty awesome. I now have a taser and shotgun to protect myself and now feel comfortable using both of them. If anyone tries to break into our apartment, they will not be feeling too hot.

We are so excited about where God is taking us, even though we have no idea where it is!

Lord please keep us seeking Your face in all things, and forgive us daily when we fail you. We praise You for Your grace.

Spiritual Lessons in 2010

God has taught me that...

1. I do not need to be so selfish. When I realized this, God gave me the power to make less selfish choices. There were multiple situations when I wanted something one way and Jon or someone else was thinking something different than I had thought in my own mind. Instead of being upset about it, I chose to be O.K. with the other plan, AND I chose not to whine internally. Upon this choice, God granted me with no upsetting emotions, and the situation ended up being better anyway!

2. Life is so very precious and short, but despite that God deserves the glory. We had a friend who almost died, and who still has the possibility of not living very long due to complications. However, she has constantly oozed the proclamation of God's glory in all times during this season. It is truly an inspiration to seek God's face even in times of suffering.

3. Fellowship is very important. Christian fellowship, outside of family, is crucial to the continual maintenance and growth of our relationship with and service to God. Enough said.

4. I am nothing without God, and I can do nothing apart from Him. I learn this one more and more every year.

5. God will never stop being faithful and will continue to bless you if you seek His glory and truth and wisdom, EVEN if you still sin. This is only because of His grace and for His glory. I make so many mistakes. We as a couple make so many mistakes. But God has given us a desire to worship Him with our lives and gives us the grace and strength through His Son to turn from sin each time so we may know Him more. Because of this, He continues to bless us in so many ways beyond anything we can ever imagine.

Have a wonderful new year's weekend and start it with praising our good and holy God for all He is!

2nd Anniversary

My husband is the sweetest man alive.

I have had such a blessed two years with him. I still cannot believe he picked me. He has challenged me and loved me so tenderly. I cannot express m love to him enough.

I was really sick these past four days, and he took such good care of me. He went out at midnight last night, after an eight hour shift, to get me lemons, cough drops, powdered sugar (for his anniversary brownies), and candy (for Christmas presents). He then proceeded to bring me flowers-purple flowers of course. They are beautiful, but not nearly as beautiful as he is.

He also got me a most amazing anniversary gift-a pink taser/flashlight combo. It is a 3.2 million volt taser so it will really do a number on anyone who tries to attack me. This is such a thoughtful gift because he loves me so much he wants me to be safe, even when I am not with him. Now, I will have no problems having a means to get away from scary situations if they ever do occur.

These past two years have been absolutely wonderful. A lot of growth, love, happiness, some pain, but mostly joy in knowing better our Lord and each other.

Happy Anniversary Jon! :-) You have my heart always.

I Don'y Know Why....

I was doing the dishes tonight, and of course, I had not done them all week and they piled up pretty high. I had to put away the clean ones that had sat on the counter from....well, whenever it was I did them last.

As I was putting the glasses away, I noticed there were crumbs in one of them. There was a bit of water in it also (because who actually hand dries their dishes AS SOON as they wash them?) so the crumbs had poofed up all big. This of course then attracted a bug which was now floating in the watery grave. I had set some silverware in the cup to "dry" so now of course I had to not only rewash the cup, but now all the silverware in the cup.

Feeling slightly aggravated, I actually said these words out loud: "I don't know why I even try to clean things...." After about a minute of reflection, I realized that the cup was still wet because of me, the crumbs were in there because of me (brownie crumbs from earlier this week), and the only reason it was aggravating was because I knew I still had a million dishes to clean-the dishes I ignored all week.

After another minute of reflection, I pondered, "Jesus never said, 'I don't know why I even tried to come to the cross to save the world...."

:-/

Yeah, he never said that.

So I realized in this lesson my attitude matters-ALL the time in ALL situations. Dishes may seem small, but it is a progression: first dishes, then laundry, then my husband because he left a sock on the floor, then our future kids for not putting their clothes away, then my family as a whole for doing anything wrong at all, etc. I need to shape my attitude to match Christ's-one that serves and worships our God in all things. Every thought, action, and word must be captivated by Christ.

I then finished the dishes in a much better mood, knowing God corrected my sin and gave me the strength to not be defeated by fatalistic perfectionism, but to strive to be more like Him. Thank You for Your grace God!

To Be or Not to Be: Organic Anyone?

So I have a confession to make. I thought organic was an interesting idea, but I was not sold on it and mostly thought it was a waste of time, money, and energy. Fruits and vegetables can be washed and meat must be OK after you cook it, right?

Well this all started when my husband thought we needed to do a four week health challenge. We chose to make better food choices, avoid fast food, and plan our meals on a graph. We also gave ourselves flexibility, not being crazy about the strictness. I was so excited! My husband was great accountability and encouraged me to work out and not eat candy. :) Well, it turned out well. We felt better and had more energy. (I did let myself have coffee with yummy sugar and cream as my one treat.) It was right at this time I also was really beginning to research fresh foods, healthy alternative recipes, and what the terms whole wheat, organic, refined, and processed actually meant.

After a lot of research, I found the definitions below (not all super scientific):

Whole wheat: All grains start out as whole grains. If, after milling, they keep all three parts of the original grain – the germ, bran and endosperm – in their original proportions, they still qualify as whole grains. http://www.wheatfoods.org/AboutWheat-what-is-whole-grains/Index.htm
Organic: Organic refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed. It includes a system of production, processing, distribution and sales that assures consumers that the products maintain the organic integrity that begins on the farm. http://www.ota.com/definition/quickoverview.html
Refined: freed from impurities by processing http://www.thefreedictionary.com/refined
Processed:Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processed_food

I watched Food, Inc. and learned about how food has been changed, patented, and controlled. I also found out what CSA’s are (Community Supported Agriculture-see localharvest.org) and went to a local farmer’s market! I got local, home-grown, organic tomatoes, yellow squash, zuchinni, cantaloupe (my husband loves this), and a pumpkin that I can use for cooking when I am done enjoying its beauty this fall season. I am so excited! The food was delicious and I was so thankful God has blessed us with the finances to enjoy a few healthy alternatives. I also made homemade whole wheat noodles which we will be trying this week, and asked my husband for a bread machine for Christmas (can I say slightly ecstatic?!). I found one really nice one for a pretty good deal and he wanted me to order it right away. I am going to not use it until Christmas :( but just knowing I will be able to make healthy alternatives for just about every grain item is so wonderful.

I also read an excerpt from In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan, that “Corn contributes 554 calories a day to America’s per capita food supply and soy another 257. Add wheat (768 calories) and rice (91) and you can see there isn’t a whole lot of room left in the American stomach for any other foods. Today these four crops account for two thirds of the calories we eat. When you consider that humankind has historically consumed some eighty thousand species, and that three thousand of these have been in widespread use, this represents a radical simplification of the human diet. Why should this concern us? Be humans are omnivores, we need somewhere between 50 and a 100 different chemical compounds and elements in order to be healthy. It’s hard to believe we’re getting everything we need from a diet consisting largely of processed corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat.” (page 117-118). I am going to attempt to get these two books. Read an article here by Lindsay for a summary of this book:
http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2009/10/in-defense-of-food-an-eaters-manifesto.html

I am also reading a lot about milk and homogenization. EEK. Our milk isn’t that great after all. I talked to Jon about this and we will have to decide what we want to do. There is not a VERY close farm with fresh, raw milk (closest 30 mins) but in the opposite direction of anything we go to now. If I can plan all my grocery shopping in the same trip in the same direction then we may make an effort to get fresh milk. I am also looking to simulate green tea with honey from the grocery store. My husband downs it quickly and I want to be able to give it to him, but in a healthy way. Any recipes out there?

I also started making kefir (DELICIOUS!), which is an effervescent, yogurt like, fermented milk. It is great in smoothies and for soaking grains and for using instead of oil/butter/sour cream in bread recipes. I eventually want to make some homemade yogurt too.

Anyway, this is our health journey so far. I want to be a frugal and health seeking wife so my family can have healthy, long lives, (God-willing) so that we can serve God in many ways and not be held back by anything like bad health or disease. However, I know our Sovereign God will always provide for us and care for us, organic or not, in sickness and in health. I am so glad He is so good to us! To Him be the glory always!

If anyone has any other adventures, tips, recipes, etc. that can help a family make healthy choices, I welcome comments!