Called to Suffer

 "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus..." — Philippians 2.5

Jesus was born to suffer & die. His wouldn’t be a particularly easy or even “happy” life. Many people used Him while being extremely ungrateful.  He didn’t always get to have a break when He wanted one. He was misunderstood more often than not. His life wasn’t fair, at all. He literally faced discouragement at every turn. 

And we’re called to be like Him, to follow in His steps, to suffer & die like He did (not necessarily including physical death, but possibly even that too).

“That I may know [Jesus] and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own” (Philippians 3:10-12, ESV).

We have the awesome privilege of suffering with Jesus, even unto death. Before my accident, these were some of my very favorite verses! I used to love meditating on them, and I longed to live these verses out - although I had literally no idea what that might mean, and the past several years have been far more than I bargained for while not immediately jumping out at me as one fulfillment of these verses in my life. 

Then today while folding laundry and rocking my seven-month-old to sleep and pondering last night’s discussion with our connect group from church and trying to view my life’s sufferings through the lens of opportunities to fellowship with our suffering Savior, it hit me. Wham! God has not only given me many, many opportunities to fellowship with Him in His suffering - but He has also given me the opportunity to fellowship with Him in His death! 

I know, I know, my brief death (at the scene of my 2012 car wreck, before the ambulance crew resuscitated me) wasn’t anywhere close to the beautifully glorious and full-of-purpose Cross of Christ. My death was nothing spectacular. And yet, it’s still true that God has graciously allowed me to share both in His suffering AND IN HIS DEATH during my earthly lifetime! How many people can say that?! It’s an honor and a privilege. 

God, please help me remember the great Christian call to suffer & die with You the next time something doesn’t go my way!

Vacay Dining at the Gorge

As promised, here are the recipes from our family vacation last week at Red River Gorge in Frenchburg, KY....

Monday supper - Chili cheese dogs, BBQ potato chips, and hot cocoa 

Tuesday breakfast - Breakfast bagels with ham and cheese 

Tuesday lunch - Chicken satay skewers and southwest salad (from a Walmart salad mix)

Tuesday supper - Hamburgers, sweet potato fries, and double chocolate s’mores 

Wednesday breakfast - Breakfast burritos with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and red & green bell peppers 

Wednesday lunch - Baked potatoes, southwest salad, and sweet potato fries 

Wednesday supper - Campfire pizza log, southwest salad, sweet potato fries, and cinnamon-rolls-in-oranges

Thursday breakfast - Breakfast burrito leftovers and cinnamon roll leftovers 

CAMPFIRE PIZZA LOG

BAKED POTATOES

BREAKFAST BAGELS

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHIP S'MORES

BREAKFAST BURRITOS

CHICKEN SATAY SKEWERS

I'll post the hamburger recipe later, by itself. 

Cause the burgers my husband grills are hands-down the best-tasting hamburgers ever! 😋

Vacation at Red River Gorge

Some recipes from our family vacation at Red River Gorge in Frenchburg, KY....

Monday supper - Chili cheese dogs, BBQ chips, and hot cocoa 

Tuesday breakfast - Breakfast bagels with ham and cheese 

Tuesday lunch - Chicken satay skewers and southwest salad 

Tuesday supper - Hamburgers, sweet potato fries, and double chocolate s’mores 

Wednesday breakfast - Breakfast burritos with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and red & green bell peppers 

Wednesday lunch - Baked potatoes, southwest salad, and sweet potato fries 

Wednesday supper - Campfire pizza log, southwest salad, sweet potato fries, and cinnamon-rolls-in-oranges

Thursday breakfast - Breakfast burrito leftovers and cinnamon roll leftovers (recipes to follow in future post, along with more pictures)

Followed by coffee at Sherri’s Cafe in Winchester, KY....

We needed a vacation to get a break from life’s stresses. I realize now that before vacation my primary stressors were 1) watching my husband struggle under his heavy load of responsibilities and being mostly unable to really help with anything, and 2) staying discouraged from the many battles & conflicts that are regularly being thrust upon us.

Day 1: Getting ready - 

This day was marked by stress over not being able to do for my family what I want, or to do it as well/successfully as I’d like. I was thankful to be  able to breathe some when I stopped to nurse Levi, and while we were traveling on the road. Then we arrived at the cabin, and problems that had begun on the road continued, I was discouraged that our needed vacation was (and would continue to be) marked by the above stressors also - helplessly watching my husband struggle with stuff, and relentlessly striving for a peaceful existence amid the frequent/daily/inescapable battles. 

Day 2: Hiking, campfire, s’mores 🥾 🔥 🍫 🍪  

Realized that maybe God’s calling for me had always been to live a chaotic, stress-filled helping life - since, after all, He’d laid helping on my heart from my earliest days. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been that kind of person, but ... perhaps if I’d stayed able-bodied throughout my entire adulthood, maybe I could’ve struggled with pride  - so maybe that’s why He gave me the disabilities that make this helping lifestyle soooo much more difficult? Perhaps my disabilities are my necessary humility factor, similar to Paul’s thorn in the flesh and Jacob’s wrestling-prayer limp?

Or perhaps I’m partly paying the consequences for my own poor choices leading up to my accident ... staying up late the night before to do homework, sleeping late that morning, struggling to try to make it to school on time, and turning left before there was quite enough space to do so.

Whatever the reason, I know that I’m not perfect, I’ve never been perfect, God is perfectly good, He has always been both perfect and good, and there IS some reason greater than me as to why I have to endure the extra hardship of all these stresses and disabilities at the same time. Not that knowing this makes it any easier to helplessly watch my husband struggle, or to helplessly struggle for peace with people who don’t want peace.... Maybe someday I’ll learn the secret to enjoying these struggles. 

Anyway, yay for the struggle at least being a lot less for a little bit! It was really, really nice to have a brief reprieve from most of our normal world with all of its busy, hectic, drama-filled craziness.

Day 3: We have a 7-month-old!!! 

And he started pulling up tonight, motivated by his close proximity to the dinner table while sitting in the pack-and-play. 

Day 4: Going home with recharged batteries -

Back into the craziness. Back into the drama with my attention-challenged, extra-easily-overwhelmed TBI brain. I’m ready though. Ready to be overwhelmed, ready to lean into Jesus Who has promised to be there with His everlasting arms whenever I falter, ready to lean into my husband, ready to hold my children close, ready to cry more than other people think I should, ready to have no defense. Ready to keep struggling for more faith & hope while living, loving, serving. Ready to keep journeying with the best of Guides Who suffered Himself before dying for me. Ready to keep learning from the best and most patient of Teachers. Ready, not prepared, but here I am....

Lazy Woman's Chocolate Cake and the "Lazy" Way to Find Love

Apparently laziness makes the best cakes and the best love stories. This is the recipe that my brothers and my husband have most often asked me to make for their birthdays.

You don't really have to sift all the dry ingredients - you can literally just mix them in lazily and it'll still taste just as amazing!

And you don't really have to work hard to be "good enough" for the right man when God brings him around - you can literally just be yourself, and he'll love you just the way you are! Now, having him in your life will definitely change you for the better; but that's beside the point.

It's a lot like the Divine love story! We don't really have to work hard to be "good enough" for God to take us into His family - we can literally just ask Him in faith and trust that He'll do all the work for us. Again, having Him in our lives will definitely change us for the better; but that's beside the point.

Anyway, back to my love story....

Before I met my husband Christopher, all the guys who I liked or who liked me seemed to want/need me to change something.

One of the first guys I liked believed that short-sleeved shirts were sinful, so I wore only 3/4-length-or-longer sleeves for a while just to see if I could do it. 

Another guy who wanted to court me (we had two dates) wanted me to move to his home-state (where I knew no one), and we wouldn’t actually be going to church anywhere (just nursing home services). He also wanted to know which school subject I felt like I could teach the best in homeschooling his five children from a previous marriage.

Still another guy wanted help on his farm (again, in another state). He needed a place to stay, help writing his occasional sermons, and special water - he couldn't drink local water anywhere because it made him sick. 

One guy told me that although I could keep wearing skirts since that's my preference, he really preferred the blue-jeans look on women.

Another guy wanted me to agree the “food” at McDonald’s was too unhealthy to ever think of even touching.

And then there was the guy who kinda liked me (and I thought I loved him, but it was really just gratitude & friendship). He shared a lot of his fitness knowledge, which really helped in my recovery when I'd sort of hit a hump. We had some great talks, and we texted regularly for a while. But when it came down to it, I just wasn't recovering enough (or recovering fast enough) to be/become "good enough for him." And eventually he let me know that we needed to stop "talking."

That one was kinda hard for me to get over, so eventually I asked advice from one of the leaders at my summer internship with Joni & Friends Arizona. She gave me the excellent advice to "wait for someone who will love you as you are." 

So I took steps to let go of those wistful feelings for the guy who was "too good for me." 

And just a few months later,  my Knight in Shining Armor sent me a message on Christian Mingle that started the relationship that led to the marriage that has become a more wonderful love-relationship than I had ever dreamed possible!

So yeah....

I guess it's all about lazy loving & lazy baking! 💘

 

 

 

Creamed Beef?

Have you tried creamed beef before? 

I’ve never tried it, but when you need a quick and fancy meal idea for dinner with your husband....

I think I’ll give it a try tonight ❤️

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/trisha-yearwood/creamed-beef-recipe-2133405

A Hamburger-Helper AHA! Moment

On busy nights  . . .

Hamburger Helper is nice and easy to throw together. The recipe just requires beef, water, and milk - that is, if all you want is a pasta that tastes almost the same as any other flavor!

 

But have you ever paid much attention to the “Add Your Own Twist” section on the back of the box?? 

I never thought much about that section before, sometimes because we didn’t happen to have those ingredients and sometimes because I didn’t feel like the extra bother. But the other day, we DID have the  ingredients and I DID have the time. So I “added that twist” and then....

And the finished bowl of pasta tasted just like we were eating bacon cheeseburgers for dinner! Which got me to thinking ... what if those suggestions on the back are actually the way the pasta’s SUPPOSED to be made?!

Mexico! Lime Salmon, Tacos, & Churros

 

Mexican Salmon recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/38025/mexican-salmon/

On Monday night Christopher & I had lime salmon with mashed potatoes, Tuesday night was busy so we just had frozen pizza and kale-cranberry salad, Wednesday we did tacos with a pound of ground beef and a taco dinner kit from Walmart, and we’ll do churros sometime soon since we decided to watch Frozen 2 with Little Bit right after dinner yesterday. 😉 

Mexican flag for today's art project!

Steak (leftover), Corn Pudding, & Swiss Cake Roll

It had been too long since I'd eaten corn pudding! Aka corn casserole. Thanks to Christopher's cousin Jessica for sharing this recipe. It tasted great! But I must have done something wrong  since it didn't exactly set like it was supposed to. ;)

https://unsophisticook.com/creamed-corn-casserole/?pp=1&fbclid=IwAR11W_Yz84KqdNRaF0XxwGzqpBtVPMTE-nSQMjk-ogijoGZfi9Hrmbkoymo

Then Little Bit wanted to make cake, so we made a Swiss cake roll together. It was a weird day in the kitchen for me, though - cause our Swiss cake roll didn't really resemble traditional cake texture, but was more like a Little Debbie cake, lol.

https://dinnerthendessert.com/chocolate-cake-roll-swiss-roll/?fbclid=IwAR3C0sT8hmOf8jCVRHKx0438NiVV9wijnLq9s1dhzckP3bF-mcvqP9OrZcw

 

Leftover Steak from our Family Cookout

Corn Pudding

Little Bit spreading leftover coffee-flavored icing on the "Little Debbie" Swiss cake roll

Steak Night

Here’s the recipe Christopher uses to make his delicious steaks! Psst, it includes COFFEE. 😋 

 

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grilled-new-york-strip-steaks-5232389

Prepped and ready to go!

My man at work 💕

While Levi and I watch 👀

Family photo time!

Steak

Garlic bread (made from everything-flavored hot dog buns)

Grilled Eggplant