There is something very strange about me that probably to some sounds very, very, odd.
I love green smoothies. I love Brussels Sprouts. On frequent occasion I drink apple cider vinegar (well just a small gulp). I prefer whole wheat bread over white any day and turn up my nose at margarine.
I am very much a health nut.
I was the girl who took spinach quiche to work for lunch and thus received many descriptive comments. Best one "is that something not digested properly by a cow"?
Recently I even made yogurt in little dorm room in a crock pot. Just go ahead and call me Miss Domestic.
Before you think that I am person who eats perfectly healthy every single day, including Thanksgiving, let me just wipe that notion from your brain.
I love freshly fried mozzarella sticks. I love curly fries. I love pizza (I recently ate it almost 5 nights in a row and didn't feel the least bit guilty). I love chips and dip, the cheesy kind of course. I love to put whipped cream on cereal and Pb and banana sandwiches because it just makes me smile and the added fat keeps your fuller. Ahem.
And of course I love ice cream. Its in my gens and I can't help it and yes I will blame my infatuation with ice cream on my family. Whenever a certain aunt and I are together we manage to make it a point to sample ice cream at as many places as possible. My grandma ate a good amount of ice cream and lived a very long and of course a very happy life since she did not deny herself the pleasure of creamy goodness.
However when I've been eating lots of foods that just taste good because they have all sorts of bad things in them I begin to stop liking them. Suddenly all I want is platters full of lush green lettuce. I want to drink smoothies full of homemade yogurt and thus full of good nutrients.
I crave healthiness. Its just something in me that won't go away, no matter how hard I try to stay away from health food. Well true I don't try very hard...
There I have divulged a piece of information about myself and please don't feel that you have to be a health nut to read this blog, because obviously I'm not a health nut.
I'm not sure why I just wrote a long post about food, but maybe its a sign that I should go have some Brussels sprouts and ice cream. Not together of course.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Monday Musings
Trying to spark some breakfast table conversation this morning I asked what everyone was looking forward to about the day.
"Going to Bed" was the reply.
Yep it was a Monday Morning. Sometimes I wonder why Mondays have to be considered so dreadful. It is the day after worship and the second day of a fresh week, yet they are loathed like none other.
I suppose the culprit behind the distaste of Mondays for me at least is discontentment. I do not wish to get up so early. I wish it weren't so cold when I got up. I fancy that I might be happy if I were getting up early to catch a plane to some glorious warm spot by the ocean.
When I get up on Monday life hits me. I still have the same problems as I did before. I still have the same decisions to make. And no matter how hard I try I cannot make myself perfect.
I wonder what would happen if Monday became something other then the day of the after weekend crash.
Monday just like each and every day is a brand new day. A brand new day to see God's grace. To find His grace in the simple things. To experience the joy of being around others.
To do instead of simply being.
Next Monday is coming soon and its going to be a beautiful day to see God's grace.
"Going to Bed" was the reply.
Yep it was a Monday Morning. Sometimes I wonder why Mondays have to be considered so dreadful. It is the day after worship and the second day of a fresh week, yet they are loathed like none other.
I suppose the culprit behind the distaste of Mondays for me at least is discontentment. I do not wish to get up so early. I wish it weren't so cold when I got up. I fancy that I might be happy if I were getting up early to catch a plane to some glorious warm spot by the ocean.
When I get up on Monday life hits me. I still have the same problems as I did before. I still have the same decisions to make. And no matter how hard I try I cannot make myself perfect.
I wonder what would happen if Monday became something other then the day of the after weekend crash.
Monday just like each and every day is a brand new day. A brand new day to see God's grace. To find His grace in the simple things. To experience the joy of being around others.
To do instead of simply being.
Next Monday is coming soon and its going to be a beautiful day to see God's grace.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Because Life is Sometimes Ugly
I read a blog post this afternoon. Words that left my stomach in knots. Words that made me squirm in my seat and words that brought tears to my eyes.
When I was done reading the world no longer seemed right, but a place awfulness and sin. Lives created by God that are meant to be beautiful are misused. People are made to feel worthless, changed so they do not feel and have no hope.
I'm sitting in a warm comfortable room. I'm safe. I will go to bed tonight and I will be safe. I will get up tomorrow and work a good respectable job. Life is blissful.
Tonight in cities across the USA and across the world, thousands will not be safe. They do not have the comfort of normal life for slavery has bound them tight.
This is a subject that is not for the faint of heart. Not for the young and the innocent, but it is a subject that that must be talked about with maturity and detest for what it is.
Human Trafficking exists. Its ugly, cruel, disgusting, revolting, awful, and whatever gruesome adjective you can use to describe it.
It happens right here in the US as you can read here .
God did not mean for young lives to made ugly. Sin crept in and destroyed every hope of a beautiful life. Human Trafficking is supposed to be done in secret away from prying eyes, but God knows and hates it. There are thousands out there who wonder about this God who allowed their life to be turned into something so vile. We have a task to share with them the love God. Tell them of redemption. Tell them of Hope. Tell them of grace.
January is Human Trafficking awareness month and I'm not even sure what can be done to help. Its a daunting task.Thankfully there are those who aren't just sitting on the couch like me, but are actually working to rescue these people. Read about it here.
And also check out the fascinating work that the Exodus Road is doing. These of course are all just blogs and I don't know enough to say if I can support the ideas of these people a 100%, but I do know there is a problem and something must be done. Even if its just writing a short little blog post.
For now I pray. I pray for those working to rescue these children. I pray for the children themselves. I pray for a world who has made such a mess of things and I praise God for His grace that He so freely gives even to those who feel that their life is worthless.
When I was done reading the world no longer seemed right, but a place awfulness and sin. Lives created by God that are meant to be beautiful are misused. People are made to feel worthless, changed so they do not feel and have no hope.
I'm sitting in a warm comfortable room. I'm safe. I will go to bed tonight and I will be safe. I will get up tomorrow and work a good respectable job. Life is blissful.
Tonight in cities across the USA and across the world, thousands will not be safe. They do not have the comfort of normal life for slavery has bound them tight.
This is a subject that is not for the faint of heart. Not for the young and the innocent, but it is a subject that that must be talked about with maturity and detest for what it is.
Human Trafficking exists. Its ugly, cruel, disgusting, revolting, awful, and whatever gruesome adjective you can use to describe it.
It happens right here in the US as you can read here .
God did not mean for young lives to made ugly. Sin crept in and destroyed every hope of a beautiful life. Human Trafficking is supposed to be done in secret away from prying eyes, but God knows and hates it. There are thousands out there who wonder about this God who allowed their life to be turned into something so vile. We have a task to share with them the love God. Tell them of redemption. Tell them of Hope. Tell them of grace.
January is Human Trafficking awareness month and I'm not even sure what can be done to help. Its a daunting task.Thankfully there are those who aren't just sitting on the couch like me, but are actually working to rescue these people. Read about it here.
And also check out the fascinating work that the Exodus Road is doing. These of course are all just blogs and I don't know enough to say if I can support the ideas of these people a 100%, but I do know there is a problem and something must be done. Even if its just writing a short little blog post.
For now I pray. I pray for those working to rescue these children. I pray for the children themselves. I pray for a world who has made such a mess of things and I praise God for His grace that He so freely gives even to those who feel that their life is worthless.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Life is beautiful.
Life is beautiful. I know its an old saying perhaps somewhat cliche, but its 3 of my favorite words because life is truly beautiful.
You know you have a beautiful life when you miss the sweet smell of baby soap on a little baby's head.
Life is beautiful when your running like crazy making supper and then through the window you see the rich colors of the setting sun.
Its a beautiful life when a little one snuggles on your lap and asks you to read the same book for the 5th time.
When you eat yummy tacos with friends and just sit around not doing very much there is beauty in the simple fellowship of friends.
When you get that text, e-mail, phone call, from a friend and know that your thought of life beautiful .
Life has ugly scars that cover it, but beauty was made not too exist without pain, but go right long with the pain too turn the hurt into something beautiful.
Christ's scars are the ugliest things ever made by man, yet they are the most beautiful picture of God's grace.
There is beauty in the day, sometimes we just have to stop and look for it. What made your life beautiful today?
You know you have a beautiful life when you miss the sweet smell of baby soap on a little baby's head.
Life is beautiful when your running like crazy making supper and then through the window you see the rich colors of the setting sun.
Its a beautiful life when a little one snuggles on your lap and asks you to read the same book for the 5th time.
When you eat yummy tacos with friends and just sit around not doing very much there is beauty in the simple fellowship of friends.
When you get that text, e-mail, phone call, from a friend and know that your thought of life beautiful .
Life has ugly scars that cover it, but beauty was made not too exist without pain, but go right long with the pain too turn the hurt into something beautiful.
Christ's scars are the ugliest things ever made by man, yet they are the most beautiful picture of God's grace.
There is beauty in the day, sometimes we just have to stop and look for it. What made your life beautiful today?
Thursday, January 3, 2013
A Letter to...Me
Dear Me,
2012 was a grand year. I graduated from college. I made some
amazing friends. I made decisions, which do not easily happen for me . I went outside of my
own country, and left a piece of my heart there. I became a part of history and
voted in our country’s election. I tried new things.
Those are the things I don’t think of first when I think of
2012. Instead I think of all the things I didn’t do or should have done.
2012 is gone, in the history books, scribbled in the pages
of my journal, wiped from my memory…well I wish. A new year is here, a fresh
start, but the past is still with me. I may be in a new year, but I have brought
every thing from 2012 with me and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.
Mistakes, failures, things not accomplished, things said can haunt my memory or
I can choose to see those things as not a pitiful wast of my life, but as
lessons learned. I didn’t choose to fail at life, but I can to choose to see
the failure as dare I say it…a good thing. 2012 holds regrets and moments of
how could I be so insensitive and ridiculous. Those are the things I can either
choose to see as a wreck or see as a work of God’s grace. God choosing to use
me despite my inability to follow Him completely. The past cannot be changed, but by the grace of
God the past does not have to rule my life, but instead can shape me into what
God wants me to be.
2013 is upon us. I have made my list of goals (yes I am one
of those people). One year from now if God wills 2014 will be here and to be
honest it’s a very certain thing that 2013 will have its own regrets.
No I am
not planning to fail, but I have tasted the bitterness of life and know how
easy it is for life to slap you in the face. The touch of God’s grace is gentle
and it is by His grace that I can make the small choice of discipline that
applies to so many areas of life. I look into the new year full of hope and
joy. Not because of accomplishments I want to happen, but because a faithful God who I know who is going to
prune me. It’s a scary adventure, but with the peace of God surrounding me I’m
ready for it.
Yours Truely,
Yourself.
P.S.
I wrote this in a coffee shop. I must confess I've never done that before and it made me feel very uh bloggerish.
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