Jesus is in the hard places

I have to believe it.  I just have to believe that He is in my hard place right now.

Part of what discussed today at BSF was the story from John 4:43-54 of Jesus healing the son of a nobleman.  During this portion of the lecture, our teaching leader discussed the likelihood that the nobleman was initially resistant to believing that Jesus was not limited by time, space or death.  I think back now and wonder how hard it must have been to believe Jesus and obey when he said, “Go, your son will live” (vs. 50). 

At one point, she loosely quoted Tom Landry:

“Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.”

While our lecture was not on leadership, the point that I took away from it was this:  Sometimes, God is going to make me do some things that  don’t want to do to achieve the results that He wants. 

That nobleman had to believe and act on that belief  by leaving and going home in order for Jesus to release his healing power. 

But between that time of belief/action and the time that he got word that his son was alive and well, the nobleman was on the road between Cana and Capernaum.  Can you imagine how hard that road home must have been?  Knowing that you had entrusted your son’s very life to someone and that you were then leaving behind.  How alone must this father have felt?

But you know what?  Jesus was there.  He hadn’t been left behind.  Not in the least. He was working in the situation as that man took his (literal) steps of faith and headed home.

The man had to do what he didn’t want to do in order for Jesus to achieve the result that He wanted… the man’s faith.

So the final quote this morning was that “Jesus is in the hard places [of life].”

I won’t kid you a bit.  I am in a hard place.  A hard place full of details that need not be discussed here, but hard nonetheless.  I have spent the better part of this week very discouraged and feeling defeated and alone.  I have been asking Jesus to shine his Light on my situation that looks so very dark.  And now, with this bit of truth, I feel like that prayer is being answered. 

Jesus is in the hard places. 

I quoted this on twitter today and someone sent me this message back: “The hard place is also known as the "cleft of the rock."  He is nearer than you know.” 

And, yet again, I am taken back to Exodus 33:18 where Moses says to the Lord, “Show me your glory.”  God replies and in verse 22 says, “When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” 

Jesus is in the hard places.

I ask Him to show His glory.

As I am here, in this hard place.

Friendship

We came home from BSF today and Nathan immediately asked to watch a movie.  (You must understand that in our house, for some reason, any show on television is called a movie by both of our children.  I have no idea why.)  I told him that I was not turning anything on and that we were about to eat lunch. 

He happily went about his business and played with his remote controlled motorcycles while I got lunch ready and then we ate. 

After we had finished, he went back to his motorcycles and then, the next thing I know, he has cleaned up and put them all away.  Then he said the most curious thing.

“Mom, I’ll be your best friend if you turn on a movie for me.”

As with so many things that this boy says, I had to stifle my laughter.  But that was only for a moment until I realized the larger picture that was at stake here.

Certainly, Nathan does not have the full understanding of the weight of what he said, but I cannot as a responsible parent, let this teaching opportunity pass by.  I just can’t.  So we talked about it.

Think about that statement though.  Let the weight of it rest upon you for a moment.

How often do we do that; both as kids and as adults?  We set conditions on our friendship.  We are in essence saying, “I’ll be your friend as long as you do something for me.  As long as you meet some need that I have.”

Or the opposite might me true.  Maybe we say, “I will do this for you if you’ll just please be my friend.”

I know I have been on both sides of that conversation.  I’ve been the one to only offer friendship if the person has done something for me.  And I’ve been the one, even recently, who has done things for people, time consuming things, just to prove myself worthy of their friendship.

And it dawned on me, all in these few brief moments that I had to whittle the whole concept down so that I could talk to my 4 year old about it, that it’s not about what we do for one another.  As I explained to him, we’re friends just because we are, regardless of what one person does for another. 

And then, I turned on a show, just because I love him and because he asked me.  Not because I need or want him to be my best friend.  But because I wanted to bless him.

That, my friends, is what friendship is about.

Go out and bless a friend today.  Just because.

Oh, and it was also Halloween {Mama Braggin’ Monday}

My mom called last week while I was gone one evening and invited us to come out to see them and their new house this weekend.  But as she and Mike talked about it for a moment, they realized that it was Halloween.  But once we talked about it, we realized that we had absolutely no plans during the entire weekend, so we said sure.  Because, seriously, the kids don’t care where they trick or treat as long as they get the candy, right?

Right.

I called her back and let her know that we did still have soccer games first thing on Saturday morning, but we would plan to leave right after that.  So off we went to Mimi and Papa’s house for Halloween.  This was a first for us.

I love that my kids spent that day doing a lot of this…

… and this …

… and being doted on like this…

Oh and they also dressed up because it was, after all, Halloween. 

We went to a little bity country church’s fall festival.    The kids played games, went on a hayride and ate corny dogs. 

And, of course, got candy and prizes.

So, in my opinion… Halloween just doesn’t get any better than the day we had on Saturday.  I hope yours came close to being as fun as ours.

Foodie Friday: Pumpkin Cake Truffles {Flavor of the Month}

For this round of Flavor of the Month (hosted by Bridget at Bake at 350), our challenge was pumpkin.

Now, it is my understanding that our creation can even just be in the shape of the challenge and not necessarily the “flavor” of it.  Well, I took liberty in that this month since I don’t normally make a lot of pumpkin flavored things.  I made a pumpkin pie once… none of us were all that crazy about it. 

I know, I know… “That’s just crazy talk.”

But it’s true.

So I present to you my pumpkin shaped and decorated, but not necessarily flavored, cake truffles. 

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Now, I think I’ve already made it clear that I did not use a pumpkin flavored cake inside these.  What flavor did I use?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  Inside of each of these beauties is Orange Vanilla Spice Cake held together by a Cinnamon Browned Butter Icing.  Click on the names and it will shoot you over to the recipes on the recipe blog.

I learned a couple of things in the process of making these truffles.  Lesson #1: I learned that I don’t have time to make cake truffles very often.  I just don’t.

Lesson #2: Red candy chips are really powerful, color wise.  You see, there were no orange candy chips on the day I went to Hobby Lobby so I used my mad Kindergarten level science skilz and decided that I should be able to make the color I wanted by using the yellow and the red chips that were available.  So I measured equal amounts of each and melted them.

But instead of orange, I ended up with….

just a really funky light reddish color.

So, I pulled out my gel icing colors and found my yellow and began to add it in.  The color got better and was just about right when all of the sudden…

The whole thing just clumped up and solidified on me.  Lesson #3: You can only add so much gel food coloring to melted candy coating stuff before it revolts.  (Lesson #3a: I am seriously considering whether this candy stuff is something I want to put into my body if it has that kind of a chemical reaction to a little food coloring.  I’m just sayin’.)

So I started over and used much less red and finally got the right color.  That whole process was way harder that it had to be.  Lesson #4: Hold out and look for the correct color of candy chips instead of trying to mix your own.

And once I had established a pattern of how to decorate the pumpkins, I discovered another lesson.  Lesson #5: Dipping the cake balls in the melted candy stuff goes a lot better when the bowl is full and the candy is freshly melted & warm.  Once the level gets too low and the candy begins to thicken from cooling off, you get pumpkins that look like they came from Chernobyl.

So… nuts and bolts.  How did I make them? 

For the cake balls, crumble up your cake and add enough icing so that the crumbled up cake sticks together like a rough dough.  Then for uniform size, use a scoop (like an ice cream scoop) to measure out your cake mixture and roll it in to a ball.  Cover and refrigerate.  (There are also instructions at Bakerella and The Pioneer Woman Cooks.)

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Put half of a pretzel stick in the top of each cake ball to act as the stem.  Coat the cake ball in the melted orange candy coating stuff.  While it is still wet, use a toothpick to draw the stripes going down the pumpkin then set aside to harden.  Decorate with butter cream icing using the #67 decorating tip for the leaves and the #1 decorating tip for the stringy things.  See the picture album below.

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And for heaven’s sake, let your kids give it a try…

Letting Sarah get her hands on my Pumpkin Cake Truffles stressed me out immeasurably, but it’s something I must make myself do.  And, she enjoyed it.

Happy Halloween, y’all!

 

Recipes in this post:
Orange Vanilla Spice Cake
Cinnamon Browned Butter Icing

New Recipes Posted

This week over on my recipe blog, I have posted three (yes, you heard me right – THREE) new recipes.  Hop on over and take a peek at them!

Mole Chicken and Rice

Orange Vanilla Spice Cake

Cinnamon Browned Butter Icing

Y’all have a great day!

Backpack Staging Area {Works for Me Wednesday}

This post might be more appropriately entitled, "This had better work for me or else I may just pull every last hair out of my head!" And if you know me or have seen my thick hair in person, you know that's a lot of hair.

I'm just sayin'.

If you have grade school aged children you know that the whole back pack thing after school can get out of hand really easily and we have battled it with our one grade schooler for the last three school years.

But now, with one that is also in Pre-K and headed full steam toward Kindergarten, I needed a solution to help us keep a handle on the back pack situation because it has been about to drive me crazy.

So this is what we came up with.



It is located in the hallway that leads out to the garage. However, it is tucked into a little cove that leads to the extra bedroom so that it's not all sticking out into the hallway and taking up walking space. But it is easily visible on the walk in form the garage which I hope will prompt them to use it.

They have the hooks for their backpacks and jackets and then the organizer up on top for their folders to go in each day. Hopefully this will also be a place that we can keep important school forms etc. that we need to deal with so that they do not get lost in the disaster known as my kitchen counter tops.



Like I said, this had better work. Because if it doesn't, I'll be having to change my profile picture. And it won't be pretty.

***

This post is part of the Works for me Wednesday carnival over at We Are That Family.

Operation Christmas Child

Our family has been involved with Operation Christmas Child through our church for several years.

If you don’t know much about it, OCC is a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse.  They encourage families to pack shoeboxes full of small gifts for children, collect said shoeboxes and distribute them all over the world along with written materials in each child’s own language that shares the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What better way can we show the love of Christ at Christmas time?

The thing that amazes me is that all a shoebox takes is a quick trip to the dollar store and you will make some child’s day or year.  We have no idea how children have been blessed by what they receive in their shoebox.  But God does.

This year’s experience has been especially meaningful to me personally.  Being where we are in the midst of very little and at times, uncertain income I had to come to a place where I realized that we still have so much more than so many people the world over.  It has been a good exercise in thankfulness for me to sit back and say, “Yes, we can spend the $30 to send 4 children the message of Christ this year at Christmas.”

I believe $30 is a small price to pay.

And, as with any charitable opportunity, it is a wonderful life lesson for my own children.  It gives me a platform in order to teach them how fortunate we are and to think of and give to others.  Sarah is well familiar with OCC.  She even remembers the year we packed boxes with her Kindergarten class (3 years ago).  It was a precious moment when, as a class of 5 year olds, we gathered around and prayed for the children who would receive the boxes we had packed.  Nathan is just beginning to learn these things at 4 years old and we talked about how we could pray for the children and he wrote his name to sign a note in each box.

So, you think you might want to participate in sending the Love of Jesus around the world?  Operation Christmas Child makes it easy. 

If you don’t have a shoebox, they’ve got ‘em.

 

If you don’t know what to pack, they have suggestions.

We like to pack:

Colored pencils & pencil sharpeners

Paper or note pads

“Happy Meal” toys

Small stuffed animals

Small “Matchbox” or “Hot wheels” cars

Toothbrush and toothpaste

 

National collection week is November 16-23, 2009.  If your church is actively involved, or you do not attend a church, you can look up a local collection site here and enter your zip code.

You can even follow Operation Christmas Child on Twitter at @occ_shoeboxes to get daily updates on how to pray.

So go get busy gathering your shoeboxes and gifts for these precious young children around the world.  And may you find the blessing in being a blessing to the least of these.

Visit Real Life to see other posts about how Bloggers Care about Operation Christmas Child.

A Slug of a Bug {Mama Braggin’ Monday}

As much as I want to be the one to talk to and teach my kids everything they need to know to have success in this world, there’s no way it is going to happen. That’s why we send them to school; because A) I am not gifted in teaching school-type subjects, and 2) there are certain real-life experiences that they will have in school that I can’t give them. There is a lot of non-book learning that goes on at school and I am thankful for a Christian school that provides a safe and Christ-centered environment for some of that learning to take place.

But really, I just got way deeper in that paragraph than what I’m really thinking of today.

Like I said, I want to be the one to teach my kids things, but I can’t do it all.

Enter the summer teen-aged babysitter.

The last two summers we have been blessed to have teens from our church come and babysit the kids during the summer months. If you babysat as a teenager, you know how young kids just love their teens; and my kids are no exception. They loved Miss K last summer and Miss S this past summer.

I mean, what’s not to love. They go to the pool, play Mario Kart, go to the local ice cream shop… it’s all fun. And at some point, in all the fun this past summer, Miss S taught Sarah about the game of “Slug Bug.”

Yeah. Do you remember that from your younger days? Apparently the kids… they still play it.

But Sarah, I think since she didn’t want to actually hit anyone (for fear of the wrath of mama), changed the rules a little bit. She sat down and assigned point values to each of the colors and on our trip to Destin(LINK) this summer, it became a competitive game to see who got the most points.

For a long time it seemed as though she was just making up the points as she went along. We weren’t sure that she wasn’t just pulling numbers out of thin air each time you called, “Slug Bug Green!”

But she assured us that she simply had the point values memorized. So, we took her at her word.

It all just seemed too arbitrary, though.

Until the other day.

Nathan initially did not really get what a Slug Bug is. He would yell, “Slug Bug” at a truck, a Corvette, or even sometimes he would yell, “Slug Bug Motorcycle!”

Yeah.

He recently has been demonstrating a greater understanding of what constitutes a Slug Bug. As we were headed home from piano lessons the other day, he yelled, “Slug Bug Red!” And you know what… it was actually a VW Beetle and it was actually red. I was so proud.

We actually saw several right in a row and Sarah was going back over the points that everyone got as I still marveled and thought to myself, “She’s just making stuff up about the point values.”

Until at one point she simply and matter-of-factly explained to Nathan that “The points are the order of the rainbow.” “WHAT?” I asked, “You mean there is an order to the points for the colors?” “Of course,” she responded, “Red is 1, orange is 2, then yellow, green, blue, and purple. After that is brown, black and white.”

Of course. What other explanation could there be?

Coincidence? Um, no.

Many times God speaks to us in themes.  Have you noticed that?  It’s like He gets on one particular topic and it is everywhere I go for a period of time. 

So is it any coincidence that the one teaching segment that I was able to attend this weekend during Beth Moore’s Life Today taping of Wednesdays with Beth was about chasing God? 

I think not.

This time, our focal passage was out of Philippians 4:1-14 and focusing on verses 12-14.  And if you know me, you might know that Philippians 4:10-11 changed my life and helped pull me out of a pit of self-pity a couple of years ago.

So there has got to be something to the fact that I have been taken back to lessons from my past recently and been introduced to a new concept repeatedly all at the same time. 

Let’s recap for just a moment…

->In Memphis the concept of being on a “Wild God Chase” was introduced in light of God’s first real revelation of himself to Moses in Exodus 34.  Is there any doubt that Moses was completely changed from that point on?

->The current BSF lesson I was studying at the time and the one we went over that following Wednesday was on the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana.  This was also Jesus first real revelation of Himself to his disciples.  They believed (were changed).

->My self discovery and writing about the lesson in Memphis led me back to this blog post where I wrote about asking God to show me his glory and chasing what matters.  Oh how quickly I forget the lessons I’ve learned when I am not truly altered and changed by the truths that are revealed to me.

->And now, at the Life Today taping on Saturday afternoon, all of this comes together as I was reminded of my past declarations to make knowing Jesus more intimately and fully each and every day and that is brought together with the idea of being on a chase after him. 

So I could make this summary statement out of what has been put before me in the last couple of weeks…

I am to chase after God and Jesus and ask Him to show me His glory by seeking to know him more intimately each day and being altered by each revelation that He gives me. 

I’m ready Lord. 

I’m ready.

Or am I?

A Wild God Chase

Yes, it took me a solid week to get to where I could write a cohesive post (and by cohesive I mean scattered all over the place) about my trip to Memphis a few weekends ago. 

And then, with my little blog-cation last week, you’re just now finally getting said cohesive post.

I had a wonderful time with my Texas Amigas and travelling partners Melinda and Tiffany.  This is us waiting in line before the mad rush to find a seat on Friday evening.

I got to meet several people for the first time and just really enjoyed my time to get to hear some of their stories and allow my heart to break for them and rejoice with them.

Oh, and be a little silly with them, too. Because what is a weekend among gal pals without some serious silliness.

The internet has done an awesome thing by bringing groups of ladies together through the common bond of Christ. My prayer for this group is that we take seriously our calling to reflect Christ by our love toward one another through the internet and in person.

I am not going to post tons of pictures of all the neat bloggy friends I got to meet in person because Sophie did such a great job of that in her “Big Bloggy Fun” post on the All Access blog. I am not going to go through the specific points of Beth’s message because Melinda did such a great summary in this post her her blog. And I’m not going to speak specifically about the amazing tangent that Beth took us on as God revealed himself through Revelation chapters 4-5 because Melanie did an excellent post about that (also over at All Access).

However, I would like to share with you the specific message that God gave to me from the weekend as a whole. Rather than the specific points of Mrs. Beth’s message (while they did speak to me as you will see with some quotes I have sprinkled throughout this post) I think the overall theme of the message is what spoke to me the most. Just the idea of being on a “Wild God Chase.”

This title is, of course, a play on words with the well known phrase, “wild goose chase” which refers to pursuing something in folly or vanity. Beth even told us about how she asked for a personal example of going on a wild goose chase and the Lord gave her one just in her attempts to get to Memphis on that Friday. Flight delays, cancellations, no more flights that day all leading to finding a chartered plane, waiting for it, more delays because of the weather… and on and on. I’m sure it did feel like a wild goose chase.

Well, I am realizing this week, after being home and having some time to reflect that I, too, have been on a wild goose chase. Only my chase was not after an airplane, mine has been with respect to some of my relationships. I realized that I have been chasing relationships with some people that I thought were important to have relationships with.

I was wrong.

And being confronted with that square in the face has not been pleasant. I have talked before, even just right before this trip, about my concern over female relationships. And I had my eyes opened to a lot during this weekend and here in this week that has followed.

The people I was seeking friendship with are Christians, so it’s not like I was looking for relationships in ungodly places. However, in this particular circumstance, I experienced a certain amount of rejection in these friendships. And it hurt.

“It’s not just about the weapon or the intention.  It is about how deeply we took it.  We take our wounding deeply, but keep our healing at surface level.” ~Beth Moore 

The Lord really spoke to me on Saturday morning as Beth spoke of how “God teems with compassion” about healing in my circumstance. For the first time, I really took hold of Christ’s comments on the cross, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do.” I related that to myself and began praying that over my situation of hurt. I think the Lord revealed to me that on many levels, these people that had in a sense rejected me did not know what they were doing.

“We can forgive others only as much as our consciousness of God’s forgiveness of us.”  ~Beth Moore

I have also thought a lot about the Lord’s compassion and healing and I originally thought that He was speaking to me about it in solely reference to myself. Some of it definitely was. However, as I have continued on this week, I’m not entirely sure that I am not supposed to be praying for healing and repentance in other people as well so that they can have healthy friendships, too.

“If our area of pain is not dealt with, it becomes an idol and we are controlled by it and bow down to it.” ~ Beth Moore

We were exhorted that we ought to be altered at every self revelation that God gives us. The Apostle John was altered by every revelation that God gave him and that led to him being entrusted with the “The Revelation” found at the end of our Bible.

I believe that God revealed Himself to me in such a real way last weekend. So here I am, saying that I have come away from this Living Proof Live experience altered, changed, never to be the same. And I pray that God will alter my views of friendship.

“God is SO life that He cannot leave anything dead.” ~Beth Moore

This is also making me think of the “Chase What Matters” ad campaigns that I’ve written about before. (I find it interesting that the scripture in the post I just linked to is from Exodus 33, the passage just preceding our core passage from Memphis which was Exodus 34:6-7.)  I am reminded that I need to really be careful to chase what matters and to continually ask God to show me his glory. I think that in this situation I was not really chasing what matters which is fully chasing God, at least in reference to some relationships. 

I feel like recently, I have gone back to high school and that I am trying to sit with the cool kids at the lunch table. I had my eyes opened this week to the fact that I have been seeking relationships that are about being with the in-crowd, even at 36 years of age and in some Christian circles. I don’t want that any more.

“He will allow loneliness and a ‘season of lack’ so that you will know that there is only one who is truly worthy.” ~ Beth Moore

I want to be able to say that I am not chasing relationships with people and that the relationships I do have are nothing other than intentionally Christ centered.  Not about position or prestige or who you know.  About Christ.

Melinda told Tiffany and I in the car on the way back to DFW that she went through a time of telling God, “You are picking my friends.” I think I’m there.

I am chasing God.

I want him to bring me and put into my path the friends He wants me to have. The friends that will not have unrealistic expectations of what I am able to give to the relationship. The friends that will, in turn, will be inclusive and will be healthy for me.

I have tried to take too much control over who my friends are and it occurs to me that being on a Wild God Chase means that He is the prize and any friends He brings me along the way are just “gravy.” As I chase after Him, He will show me the friends that He has for me.

And I know that He will put me in situations that I would never have dreamed of to meet people that I would never have imagined being friends with.

I would never have dreamed that I would come to know some of the women that I did this weekend.  Nor that I would have heard some of the stories that made my heart break for them and rejoice with them as well in the victory that they have encountered and look forward to the victory that they will achieve as they follow Christ.

As I think through this and write about it, I find myself again in a crisis of trust. This is all about trusting God with my friendships.  Trusting that he will bring to me the friendships that I need that will be healthy spiritually, emotionally and physically.

I claim that I am not rejected. I claim that Christ has accepted me and therefore I am acceptable to the Father. I will no longer chase with this blog or in friendships the stuff that doesn’t matter. I will not chase notoriety. I will not chase fame. I will not chase connections or position or any of those things.

I am chasing God.

Period.

End of story.

I am on a Wild God Chase.

As I conclude, I will leave you with my transcription of our commissioning at the end of the morning on Saturday.  I shared this moment with my friend Brandi as we spoke these words over one another. 

My dear sister,

God put you on this planet to go on a Wild God Chase.

In every circumstance, every challenge, every high and every low, God wants to disclose Himself to you.

You never have to wonder if your God is really good.

He abounds with love for you.

He teems with compassion for you.

Let his care for you go deeper than your distress.

As you leave this place, remember that for those with eyes to see every common bush is on fire for God.

Stop doubting and believe.

Now get out there and go live this life.

Because, girlfriend, your God is WORTHY!