Not Listening to the Rain.

I was driving home from some friends’ last night and it was raining. Raining loud and long and the wind was blowing and it was the kind of rain we get here in the summer, not necessarily the kind we get in February. My windshield wipers were going full blast almost the whole hour-long drive.

Not being one who is afraid to drive in inclement weather I was just toodling along when, with only about 15 minutes left of my journey I realized that I hadn’t heard the rain at all. Not on the whole journey. There was no pitter-patter that reached my ears.

Now this is not natural. After all, I was in a car made out of metal with a windshield made of glass and USUALLY you hear the rain, especially if it is this heavy rain, which it was.

“How odd,” I thought.

But then I realized why I hadn’t heard the rain and I put two-and-two together.

I had my music on really loud.

Which is a firm belief of mine: the only way to listen to music in a car is loudly. If other people are with you and they are the kind of people you can’t sit in silence with yet, or the kind you can’t interrupt when you are jarred from your conversation by a fabulous song that just came on, then music shouldn’t be on at all. I am not for this quiet, in the background kind in cars.

Nope.

It’s loud. Or it’s off.

Needless to say, I was alone in the car.

So I guess you could say it was loud.

And what was I listening to? A very dear friend of mine gave me this worship mix-cd a couple years ago and I have loved it since. It categorized a time in my life when things were coming to completion and the excitement of something new lingered in the air. How appropriate for my life right now.

And it was blaring.

So there I was driving, my eardrums being filled with all of these grand words about how God is our defender, and he has love like a hurricane, and questions about whether our end will be beautiful or not, and how we need to be led to the cross.

Those were words that were blaring so loudly.

Good words.

Impactful words.

And I had to stop and think (not literally stop, mind you. I just kept toodling along in the pouring rain). “How many times in life could I have avoided the sound of the pouring rain if I had filled my mouth and my ears with words like ‘Hosanna in the highest’?”

Does that make sense?

Sometimes in life we come to these spots where it’s not really a storm, but it sure is raining. Do you know what I mean? And I have a tendency to grumble about the wet or curse that I didn’t put my rain boots on; hate that I hadn’t prepared myself or that I didn’t handle the situation right.

Rather than hearing the rain and loathing of life and then grumbling about it, what if I had said in the face of adversity, “God has a plan.” Over and over again, “God has a plan. And he has got love like a hurricane.” Would I maybe not have heard the rain so much? Would I not have after-thought feelings of, “Gee, I wish I would have had my raincoat on. I wish I would have braved that better”?

There is a story in Mark 7 where Jesus heals a deaf and mute man. I have always found it so fascinating that the first thing Jesus does is takes the man away from the crowd and puts his fingers in his ears. I know that this man couldn’t hear and Jesus probably did that just so the man’s ears would be opened, but do you ever wish he would do that for you? Take you aside and block out all other noises so that all you hear is him. This man was going to be in for a rude awakening when his hearing returned: he would now know what it was like to hear all things, even the things not good.

Even the rain.

I guess what I am getting at is maybe if my mouth was full of claiming truth, claiming the promises of God, saying over and over again, “God has a plan,” and believing it, maybe I wouldn’t hear myself grumbling so much. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself caught out in the rain.

Morning Grace.

Hello, Wolfies.
We got like 6 inches of snow last night. And this snow was BEAUTIFUL. It was the whitest, fluffiest, most powdery stuff I think I have ever seen.

But it came in the overnight hours, which means that I had to blow out the driveway in the daylight hours. Which I usually do other things in.
Things there was now no time for.
It reminded me of something I wrote last March...
Happy Friday!

March 18^th 2011

On grace in getting ready in the morning

In having apparently forgotten to spring my travel alarm clock ahead one hour with last weekend’s Day Light Savings issuance, I was surprised to see that the walk from my bedroom to my kitchen took me an hour this morning. Or rather my bedroom time hadn’t gotten the memo. You can imagine my “Oh no….it’s 8:30,” comment that came out of my mouth over my morning glass of water.

Rush into the shower.

Rush out of the shower.

“I have to pack a suitcase!”

No time to think through outfits, just throw in clothes that I know I fit into and always seem to throw into a suitcase. “I can make that work,” I say to myself with the toss of a denim mini-skirt and leggings.

No time to make scrambled eggs and the usual ricotta pancakes…it’s cereal time. This is usually fine, but I had cereal for dinner last night, too.

Yeah, I know. But I was busy.

But the real kicker is that my overlooking of the clock cut my time with Jesus to a mere fraction.

I hate when that happens.

Especially now.

I have been involved in a Beth Moore Bible study on Daniel lately and I love Beth Moore just like the next Jesus-loving-girl in line, but my problem with any Bible study (not just Beth Moore’s, of course) is that it takes MY time away from Jesus every morning. I prefer my relationship with God not to have a blond in it.

Anyway. So since I have been “studying” it lately, I was more disappointed to not get the slated hour I had been looking forward to. Rather, just a mere 20 minutes.

Not nearly enough time to keep a good relationship going.

“Oh God, I didn’t mean for this morning to go like this. Please don’t smote me.”

J

Maybe I didn’t pray the please don’t smote me part.

But God is good. I am always so taken aback by how gracious he is to the fact that I can’t get myself over:

                                                                                I am a human.

(Praise you, Jesus, for not blaming me for that fact.)

Needless to say, He took the time I could give him. Even if it was just 20 minutes. And he met me in His very unassuming way.

Maybe that’s why I love Him so much. I mean, I could go on and on why I love Him so much, but the part where he doesn’t roll his eyes at me like I roll my eyes at me, that’s probably gotta make the list.

I don’t know when I realized for the first time that he didn’t blame me for being human. For having such narrow spiritual vision. For never being able to remember the life lesson I never thought I would be able to forget. For fearing what only He knows.

Yeah. Those are all on the list. I could go on and on, and typically do.

Today, though, I am just thankful for morning grace, knowing that I don’t deserve it, never could have earned it, and without him never would have wanted it.

I will end this with the verse He met me in this morning.

Acts 4:12-13… “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Isn’t that great? There is no other name given. No other option for salvation. No other name to draw out of the hat. Any “other” means of “salvation” are simply attempted entries to Heaven via your own power to please a Power you don’t know.

How sweet the one name:

Jesus.

Vindication.

Sin-nature Bethany desires a lot of things that Redeemed-nature Bethany tries to overcome.

Like Vindication.

In the Psalms, David prays over and over again, “Lord, let my vindication come from you.”

I think that was his Redeemed-nature David trying to overcome a natural reaction that Sin-nature David would have let play itself out.

The word Vindication means “To show that somebody or something is justified or correct; to defend or maintain something such as rights.”

David was praying against his desire to maintain his rights.

Do you ever feel that being anything less than defensive will be a trampling of your rights?

And usually, I admit, when we feel that way there probably is a little truth to it.

For me, there is this urge to have people know, or better yet, ACCEPT that what I have done was good and excellent and worth appreciating.

Sometimes, I admit, I have felt that it was my RIGHT that they accept what I have done.
Anything less than that seems a slap in the face.

And sin-nature Bethany usually comes out swinging upon being slapped. There is a “talent” I possess that, if not checked at the door and left in the coat closet forever, gives me the ability to verbally slash anyone to pieces in a matter of about 12 pointed words. I have the ability to wield a sharp sword, let’s just put it that way.

But that’s not really what Jesus would want me to do, is it?

“It is mine to avenge,” He says. “Mine to repay.”

So I try to let him use the blade.

I can see myself sitting in the corner of the room, raising an angered yet timid hand, “But what about my rights?” I imagine I would ask.

“What about them?” I imagine Jesus would respond.

 People claim rights over lots of things. Things we think are non-negotiables.

Our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Our right to free speech.

Our right to choose our healthcare.

Our right to vote.

Our right to bear arms.

Those things are all government things, aren’t they? Maybe you aren’t into government and want to disregard this topic of “rights.” Well what about this:

Our right to an apology.

Our right to a fair chance.

Our right to be ourselves.

Our right to reach our full potential.

Our right to be treated well.

We think these are non-negotiables. We are entitled to those. “I am breathing, therefore, it should be mine.”

In college I was in a communication theory class and we were talking about the nature of words. The professor was talking about how we wrongly interchange words such as rights, rules, laws. We claim something is a law when it is actually just a rule. We claim something is a law when it is a right. We claim rights are rules that should be followed to the law.

Speed limits, the professor said, are not laws. They are rules. Rules can be broken. Laws cannot. Gravity is a law. On this planet, it cannot be broken. Thermodynamics is a law. Speed limits are rules.

Rights are not laws. Rights are preferences we would prefer to be thought of as un-breakable.

There isn’t much talk in the Bible about rights.

It really only mentions one. We have a right to be punished for our sin. We have a right to go to hell.

Maybe Jesus wasn’t so odd in asking about my rights, “What about them?” He knew I didn’t want to implement my only legitimate right.

Maybe I should have restated my question: What about my desire for vindication? What about all of those times I feel like I got trampled?

“Let me take care of it,” I can almost hear him whisper. “I won’t overlook this.”

See, as a human, I don’t really have any rights. I would like to think that my dignity is a non-negotiable, but it’s not. I would prefer to live in a world where I never felt slapped across the face, where I never felt the need to wield a sharp sword. But, that’s not really this world. That doesn’t come this side of Heaven, does it? Because this world has got lots and lots of sin. And sin is a cruel mistress.

I could become resigned to the fact, I could choose to never get myself in a potentially harmful situation, I could decide to never open up again, to never do more than asked of me, but that wouldn’t really be what life is about, either. Life on the defensive is no life at all.

I could feel the light dawning in my mind.

While I don’t actually possess any rights that I want implemented, I think I failed to remember that not only is Jesus the one with the rights, he is also the one with the laws.

David knew that we have a law to let him bring vindication. That is not a part of the image of God we were bestowed with.

He is the Ancient of Days. He saw every crime that ever happened. He saw all of the injustices placed upon humanity. He saw the wrongs committed. He saw the un-appreciation.

And He knows that it is his to avenge; he will repay. He will not let the guilty go unpunished. All will give an account to him.

And he will spend my life healing all of my wounded feelings; and hopefully taking very sharp swords out of my hands.

Let my vindication come from you, Father. After all, the right to vindicate is only yours.

It ain't coming back.

I have worked in an environment that does a lot of tastings. Food tastings, beverage tastings, lots of tastings.

This has been my office.

And what usually gets served with tastings are things that get tastes out of your mouth. Palate cleansers, to be exact.

Oyster crackers, chocolate chips, ice water, coffee beans to smell, flavored ices. Those are all things that will clear your palate depending on what you just tasted.

My job has been a busy job. 16 hour days on weekends in the summer. 70 hours a week.

And you want to know something crazy? Sometimes it would be midnight, and I had been there for 15 hours, and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. And I hadn’t sat down since my drive to work. And then I would realize that I was really hungry.

So what does a place that does tastings have a plethora of?

Things that cleanse palates.

Oyster crackers. Chocolate chips. Ice water. Coffee.

Which I would then eat a plethora of.

After about a year of that, my body started telling me that I hadn’t fed it. For a long time.

I knew it was right. I had just been tiding it over.

I got these flowers a few weeks ago.

I don’t know if you can tell or not, but they were tulips at one time.

 Beautiful, gorgeous, white tulips. But they went the way the Bible says they will go and their beauty faded. However, one night I went to bed and they were gorgeous and then when I woke up the next morning they looked like this.

As I was eating breakfast that morning, with the dead flowers in front of me, I saw that there was still about an inch of water in the bottom of the vase.

Did I mention that the flowers were beyond dead at this point?

The next morning I sat in the same spot, eating my breakfast, and I noticed this:

All of the water was gone.

But I thought the things were dead yesterday?

The thought crossed my mind that I should give them more water and then I thought, “But honey, they ain’t coming back. It’s too late to tide them over.”

I had no idea that dead things could still suck life out of something, even though the life they were taking was not going to be bringing them back.

I was talking to an acquaintance the other day who lives a somewhat “un-Christian” life, if we can call it that. Let’s call it that because, well, she isn’t a Christian. As she was regaling me with all of her lifestyle decisions and the subsequent drama all I could think was, “Chick, you are running from drinking fountain to drinking fountain, aren’t you? Looking for something to tide you over. Never getting a full glass of water. Newsflash, babe: that won’t be bringing any life to you. You cannot successfully water a dead flower.”

Maybe this is admitting ignorance, but I hadn’t ever really thought that those who don’t have the Living Water are still drinking, you know what I mean? Like, what they are drinking isn’t bringing any life to them, but it is tiding them over. Or so they think so.

Living a life just being tide over is a miserable existence. Trust me, I know. It’s a life lived hungry. A life lived parched. Always on the brink of starvation. I don’t think those who live like that realize that living their life in constant search of the next oasis still means they are in the middle of the desert.

We all run from well to well to fountain to well, looking for something to tide us over, don’t we? Looking for something to suck the life out of, even if, for some, it won’t be bringing any life; even if the life ain’t coming back.

Jeremiah 2:12-13 “Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Be appalled at this, it says.

I looked at those dead flowers. I looked at my acquaintance who keeps running and was saddened that she doesn’t realize that she is a dead flower; dead because the water she is drinking doesn’t bring life. She can drink all she wants, but, if she goes in the same vein her whole life….well…that life, honey, it ain’t coming back.

Broken cisterns hold no water.

But Living Water doesn’t leave things broken.

Living Water is an oasis that doesn’t run dry, which means we don’t have to keep running in the desert, which means we don’t have to live thirsty, which means that life is coming back.

Drink deep today, my friends. Stop running. Stop living thirsty.

Wit is Brilliant.

Since this year’s New Year’s Resolution was to be brilliant, I have had to think long and hard about how exactly I was going to accomplish that.

But before I could figure out HOW to do it, I had to figure out exactly what I meant by the term “brilliant.”

Let me just start by saying that I still am a little unclear about what I mean by that phrase, which means that I am making excellent strides towards becoming it. Whatever it is.

Now that sounds brilliant.

Ok, simple kidding aside (I actually hate the thought of putting simple kidding aside….), one thing I have discovered about my character is that, to me, being brilliant has a lot to do with being witty. People who are witty are exceptional people in my eyes. They pretty much are the ones you always want around. For, even if they don’t scientifically or rationally know how to get you in or out of a desired or loathed situation, they at least make whatever the situation was into a fabulous time and will tell an even better story upon your return to the rest of civilization. Therefore, they are great to always have around.

And what could possibly be more brilliant than being wanted by everyone who is on their way into some kind of situation?!

All this to say, I am just now beginning to recognize the absolute BRILLIANCE of an author who goes by the name of P.G. Wodehouse.

Have you ever heard of the butler named Jeeves? Or Blanding’s Castle? Wooster? Is any of this making a dent?

Well, it should because Wodehouse created them, and if it doesn’t make a dent now, promise me it will by the time summer arrives!

I was given my first Wodehouse book by none other than the exceptionally brilliant Ella; the woman I rent from, for lack of a better description. Besides being adorable in all manner of speakings and fashions she has absolutely superb taste on just about EVERYTHING.

Literature is no exception.

I will just put it this way: If Ella finds it brilliant, it’s brilliant.

I doubt she would go so far as to say that Wodehouse is brilliant, but I do know she would say he is witty and I haven’t yet told her how I am connecting those two phrases. Maybe I can still make her say that he is brilliant.

Moving on.

I was given, by Ella, a Wodehouse book. And it makes me laugh out loud. At midnight. When nobody else is around and I am in an empty house. By myself. At midnight.

Am I conveying the wit?

I will not belabor the brilliance or the wit any further. Just go.

Go get a Wodehouse book.

And then post Wodehouse quotes on all of your friend’s Facebook walls.
Which is exactly what I have done every day this week.

Read Wodehouse. Be Brilliant.

On Paper Dolls

This is a paper doll.

And this is a paper doll with holes in it.

I never got into paper dolls when I was a kid. I do distinctly remember though in the Little House story books that Ma used to draw paper dolls for Mary and Laura, which would have been awesome but my mom didn’t do that and I will continue to remain unscarred from that fact.

All is still well. This will not become a complex.

Sometimes I can imagine that I feel like a paper doll must feel:

“Small child, do you think you could NOT crinkle my midsection? I am having a hard time breathing.” Or, “THAT’S IT!! If you ruffle my edges ONE MORE TIME I swear my clothes are going to fall off from agitation!! Or, “Don’t make me give you a paper cut!!”

CAN YOU IMAGINE?! If Disney came out with a movie called Revenge of the Paper Dolls…..

It’s the new Toy Story, I promise. It would have to have some lesson about how being two-dimensional and shallow won’t get you anywhere in life.

I can see it now.

Coming summer 2017.

A while ago I sat doing my devotions one afternoon. This was in the middle of a season of life where I really did feel like a paper doll. If anybody else even thought about being less than wonderful to me I literally thought I would fall apart. Talk about being totally drained, resigned even, to the point where I could say, “I have nothing left to give. They have taken it all.”

That afternoon I sat there and, while I don’t usually have music on during my devotions, I did this day. The old classic worship song, “Enough” sung by Jeremy Camp came on. Now I had known this song for like 8 years by this time, but it strangely hit me that day in a way it hadn’t previously.

The chorus goes something like this:

All of you is more than enough for all of me.

For every thirst and every need.

 You satisfy me with your love

And all I have in you is more than enough.

I thought about the very nature of God and how he is INFINITE.

As in all-encompassing, never ending, there is always more to him.

 Someone once said that even for all eternity in Heaven we will never stop learning about him because he IS eternity; He doesn’t end.

I compared that with myself; one who is so very FINITE. Every single thing about me.

I don’t go on for very long. You can get to the end of me pretty quickly.

I stopped there.

Is EVERY SINGLE THING about me finite? Like there is always an end?

What about all of my needs?

What about all my wounds?

What about all of my gaps?

Holes?

This is a picture of a paper doll. With holes in it. But I can count how many holes she has. And she has 19.

The Bible says that God is light. In him there is no darkness at all.

His light is infinite, his grace everlasting, all encompassing.

This is a picture of a paper doll with holes in it.

And this is a picture of a paper doll whom has had more light shined on her than she has holes.

Like, the light fills in the holes, and then there is still more light.

When I see this I am glad that sometimes I feel like a paper doll. Because even with all of my holes my need is still finite.

And there is more light in him than there are holes in me.

And he has more grace than I will ever have need for.

Isn’t that crazy?

He really is more than enough. There is more to him than there is need in us.

Today We Have Basil

It’s bitterly cold here today.

I love winter.

But this wind, well, it knocks the wind out of me. The snow is LITERALLY coming down horizontally.  And it’s like freezing cold in my office.

Needless to say, I am switching back and forth between listening to Sarah McLaughlin’s Christmas album, which seems very appropriate with said weather, and the song “Desert Rose” by Sting, which makes me feel very Moroccan and summer-y. Which is nothing like it is today.

What a confused girl I must seem.

I was perusing some of my writings from this past summer before I had this here little blog and came across one that I love in particular.

And it talks of summer.

And since Sting happens to be on at this moment, I am going to grace you with this little token of a summer past.

Warm Wishes. I love you all. Thanks for reading.

~

This summer two things happened:

1.       I started spending a lot of time with my friend Eliza and

2.       I started thinking a lot about basil. And then Eliza started thinking a lot about basil.

I think it started with a conversation about how we both had good feelings towards pesto.

I know, maybe most people don’t have conversations about pesto, but we definitely did. Numerous times. And our conversations elevated. “I just want to be awesome some day and have an apple cider press and make my own bread and grow my own basil!” While this isn’t a seriously strange thing for me to say, I found myself saying such trivialities quite often this summer. Then one day, I was attempting to describe my friend Loretta to my friend Eliza and I knew the only adequate explanation of Loretta could possibly be, “Let’s just say that Loretta grows her own basil. IF you know what I mean…”

Eliza knew. I knew: If you grow your own basil there is a good chance we think you are awesome.

(Loretta, if you are reading this, I think you are awesome.)

Last week our summer was finally satisfied. Ella, who grows her own basil both literally and figuratively, had a great plant of it all in full force in the yard. There was nothing left to do. Eliza and I had to make pesto.

Not to be put off by the obnoxious price of pine nuts (hint: they are not native to my Midwestern climate), we opted for walnuts (which are native…and thus they do not have an obnoxious price). And can I say that I am glad we did? I don’t know how pine nuts would have changed the flavor but I can’t imagine it to be too much. So go ahead, use the cheaper walnut. Whatever kind is native…J

All I will elaborate about the resulting pesto is that Eliza and I have more fond feelings towards pesto now than we did at the beginning of the summer.

What great goodness! Nice job, God. You again know what you are doing. Those potent leaves are brilliant. And delicious.

Then we did a "We grow our own basil" photoshoot.

For my weekend last week I went to my parent’s house. They were not home, but my brother and sister-in-law came home to keep me company. Since the green leaves were still in bloom and since I still like to cook for my family I thought I would make them such good pesto pasta. Not surprisingly, I found myself all nostalgic in being home. Visiting the haunts I used to frequent, seeing the people who used to be my only people, it all makes me go, “Darn. My life is different now, and I think I prefer this old one. Life was beautiful when I lived here; I wasn’t so terribly skeptical.”

If I am being honest I got into a little bit of a funk.

Being an adult changes the way I see the world, and I still don’t know if it is for the better. I will sadly admit that I am more skeptical, less soft, a little more bitter, more given to worry. Characteristics I hate.

The state of the world, seeing things I never needed to see, having hurts I wish I never had to have; all of these things caused me to go, “God! Will everything be ok?!?! What is going to happen to me in the next ten years? Will it all be so bad I won’t know what to do? Will I see famine and hunger and conquest and devastation?!? WILL IT ALL TURN OUT OK??!?”

There was no thunderous boomage.

 I was not bolstered by a sudden surge of confidence, but a removal of concern.

There was just a still small voice that came as I continued with dinner preparations and stood over that stove doing what I love to do for those I love most.

“Bethany, today we have basil,”Jesus said.

C.S. Lewis would say that the present is “the point at which time touches eternity.” Right now, in this Present, in this today, we can spend our time “meditating on our (their) eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Giving thanks for today’s basil.

I sigh.

Maybe the world will go even more crazy. Or maybe it will continue the way it has for thousands of years.

But today.

Well.

Today I have basil.

Happy day to you peoples. The harvest is plentiful.

The foods of 5,000

Can you imagine if we never had the story of when Jesus fed the 5,000?

Think about it. What has that story meant to you over the years? Has that story made your faith something that it is? What would your relationship look like if you had no historical evidence that Jesus could take the nothing that you had, and multiply it to do something you could have never done with it?

I love this story (and it is in a couple different gospels. One says it was 5,000, another says 4,000 I think. Either way, that was not including women and children and it is WAY more than what 5 little loaves of bread and two little fishes should be able to feed). I love this story for a couple different reasons.

Go read it now, in Mark chapter 6.

I love how Jesus makes them admit how LITTLE they have. Look at verse 38. They respond “Five loaves and two fish.” Just previously they had asked if they should go spend 200 denarii to feed these people, which I guess is equivalent to like 200 days wages. So the disciples now know how much it could take to feed these people, they know what they have, and they know that beyond a shadow of a doubt they have come up short.

But Jesus takes the little that they have anyway.

I also don’t think that he took it in a pitying way, either. Not a “Oh, well nice try anyway, you little pitiful, miserable human who can’t do anything.” No, I don’t think so.

Jesus took the overflow that they didn’t have, and thanked God for it.

THEN, and this is something I have never before noticed, after giving thanks, he set those same five loaves and two fishes down on some type of “buffet” and let the people come.

They came. All 5,000+ came, and they were satisfied (vs 42). But it was the SAME five loaves and 2 fish. There was not all of the sudden some huge spread laid before the masses with coolers and hot boxes brimming with more behind the table.

Nope.

Still just five loaves and 2 fishes.

And then you know what happens? The absolute craziest thing!

There were leftovers .

Just bits and pieces here and there. 12 baskets full of bits and pieces.

Which, if I am doing my math correctly, is more than what they started with. Did anyone else notice that? The leftovers were more than the beginning.

Isn’t that the most beautiful thing?! All of our nothingness. Our poor, miserable lack of what we need, or lack of what the situation needs, when we give it to Jesus he gives thanks for the lack, and then does more with it than the sum of all the parts.

What if Jesus had never done that? I am so thankful he did. It builds my faith to know that he cherishes the little that I can give, and that he can make something out of all that nothing.

~~~

And speaking of feeding 5,000 people, I have never done that.

BUT I did feed dessert to 450 people at a fundraiser two nights ago (which might I add raised something like $175,000 to stop babies from being aborted….yay God!!).

(It's not real champagne, mind you)

And then the next morning I came home and was like, “I never want to see chocolate mousse again and I have to have something savory NOW.”

The actress Debi Mazar and her husband, an Italian man from Tuscany---Gabrielle--who pretty much worships the ground she walks on, have a cooking show and on it they shared a recipe for something called Pepperonata. Pepperonata is pretty much pepper and potatoes cooked to almost-smithereens in tomato sauce, and then slathered on garlic bread, which has resulted on numerous occasions with me leaning my head back, closing my eyes, and proclaiming that I may never leave the dinner table.

Well yesterday morning I didn’t make pepperonata. I didn’t have any peppers.

But I did take some potatoes and cook them almost to smithereens in tomato sauce, along with onions, ham, and an egg on top which just kind of steams if you put a lid on it.

Let’s just use the word “Fabulosity.”

Did I also mention earlier that I topped it with fresh cilantro (because fresh basil does not exists in this climate this time of year) and two little rounds of buttered rosemary toast on the side made by a wonderful friend?

Consider it mentioned now.

Go. Go make yourself some savory eggs and thank Jesus in Heaven for such things as Pepperonata knock-offs for breakfast.

On dirty dishes. And photoshoots.

Do you know what, pretty much, my worst fear is?

That I will someday not have any dishes to wash.

I know, I know. I am just full of all these weird things nobody else feels. I don’t like to sleep, I don’t really like most desserts, I would prefer to live without dogs, I love cold winters, and now this: I never want the dishes to stop.

I mean look at that sudsy sink! What’s not to love!

“Bubbies,” as my two year old niece calls them, are something short of miraculous.

Most of our dishes tell stories, too.

Like this coffee cup from the Starbucks.

The Starbucks Support Center, that is. A.k.a Headquarters.

And this cup can only be procured there at Headquarters.

And I know somebody who works there, so I got to be there.
What a tremendous day.

Or this cup. From Hot Coffee, Mississippi.

While I have never been to Mississippi, it was given to my family by a dear friend of ours who lived there. An eccentric old man when we knew him. A chain smoker for some 65 odd years, he had drank nothing but Venezuelan espresso for the last 30 years, an avid collector of Cadillacs, he was very generous and died of something like a cold when he was well up into his 80’s and had given his life to the Lord only some 10 months prior to that. We met him through one of my brothers. He was something of a “grandfather” figure to my brother’s friend (as well as Brett Favre, we found out), and he invited my brother to Mississippi for a crawfish boil one weekend.

And that was it. From then on out he was Mr. Curtis to us.

So I love the stories our dishes tell.

Which is part one of a two part reason for why I would be sad if I never had any more dishes to do.

Part One: If I never had any more dishes to do, then I might forget the stories that they tell.

Part Two: If I never had any more dishes to do, then that would mean we wouldn’t have any food.

Which is the “worst fear” part. Famine sounds awful.

And I hate that a lot of people in the world live in it.

Therefore, from today, I will try to never complain again about dirty dishes because not only do some dirty dishes tell stories of God’s faithfulness, but they always tell a story of God’s provision.

~~~

My best friend is moving to Arizona next week.

I don’t live anywhere near Arizona.

Naturally, we had to see each other one more time before she turned her life upside down.

This move is such an answer to her prayers. *Finally.

I don’t know what else there is to do to commemorate these changing lives than a photoshoot, and since I couldn’t think of anything else, we did a photoshoot. Which is somehow the first I have done with her, which doesn’t make any sense because I seem to do them with everyone.

My theological reason for this is because I believe that adult women need to play dress-up more.

It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously, and for once it reminds us what is was like to not feel the weight of the world, and then to not worry about that weight, and simply to trust that “my Father will take care of it.”

So here is to us letting Him take care of it.