Whatever you do....

Happy Friday there, Wolfies!! This morning I am scurrying about, getting ready for the weekend and my house currently looks like this, which clearly means that I should probably cut this short and not be my typical long-winded self.

Keepin' it real....

Hubbs and I are off to see some great friends a few states away (but closer from here than the homeland!), so we are eagerly anticipating some Jesus-loving conversation and fun, copious amounts of great coffee, some down time (for him), and (for me), driving X number of hours there and back!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realize maybe all of those exclamation points might seem like overkill. But, indeed, they are not.

Why, you might ask, are they not overkill?

Because Hubbs has told me for a LONG time that the only time I will ever drive in my entire life when he is in the car is if he is incapacitated beyond safety and consciousness.

Now, Hubbs is neither of those things this weekend.
BUT!!!! He has a boatload of work to get done and, THEREFORE, he is recanting----probably just this once----on his previous boast and I, yes, ME, I am going to drive there AND BACK.

What a momentous weekend, indeed!!

It's the little things, babes.


The last couple of mornings I have been reading in I Timothy and it is all about being people of sound doctrine, not shipwrecking your faith, etc etc etc.

And it has just been weighing heavy on my heart these days especially today, what with the coming out of....................that.....................movie. If I grant it show much grace as to call it that, rather than what it really is.

A pornographic film.

It seriously hurts my heart. It reminds me so much of Romans 1 where, to add an emphasis, Paul says about the depraved people, "Even THEIR WOMEN exchanged natural relations....." (Romans 1:26). Women, generally, are more spiritually intuitive than men, so when a culture's women "exchange the truth of God for a lie" (Romans 1:25) (---which is exactly what this is; it's all the lies that will kill you wrapped up in a little leather and chains package----), then we really have reached the bottom.

On our way to hell in a handbasket.

Please. I plead with you. Whatever you do, don't watch this movie. And for heaven's sake don't read the books.

You cannot unsee what has been seen.

Albert Mohler says it way better than I can. Please read this. And please, please, please please please please please, don't shipwreck your faith by seeing Shades...


Wolfies, I love you so. That's why I say this. Whatever you do.....don't.

Where But For.

Do you ever feel like you live in two realities?
As in, the life you live everyday sometimes gets interrupted by other realities and yours feels a shattered after that?

My Hubbs and I frequent the gym these days, and at our gym every single machine is equipped with its own TV. Now, Hubbs and I don't have TV at our house in this season of life, so it is kind of our only view (besides the internet) into the outside world these days.

And this is precisely where my reality tends to get shattered.

 Most often I can be seen running full speed ahead and lip syncing to whatever is buzzed into my ear buds. Or sometimes you will catch me punching the air...while running... as if I were training in martial arts. How embarrassing. More often than not, though, I am flipping back and forth between the news, the Food Network, PBS,and Discovery on the now rare-to-me television. Quite the spectrum of interests, I know. And if you are curious, the answer is Yes. I am the only one in the entire gym watching Bob Ross paint "Happy Little Trees" while on the stair stepper.

But last week my little quirky gym habits were disrupted not once, but twice.
Two Sundays ago Hubbs and I went to the gym and we had the place virtually to ourselves because everybody else was with their friends watching The Big Game rather than being at the gym watching The Big Game without their friends.
I don't really care for either of the teams that were playing but the last few minutes were crazy and I was enjoying myself with the continuous back-and-forth.
Until.

UNTIL my happy little football watching heart got broken when men who get paid to throw a football around started beating each other like pinatas.
I immediately hit the emergency stop button on my treadmill because, well, I had burst into tears.
Hand over the mouth, whispering "No, no no," I was trying to stop the waterworks because believe it or not, crying at the gym is more embarrassing than punching the air while running.

Are you serious? Who are these babies? BEATING EACH OTHER. The worst part (well there are a lot of "worst part"s) being that tens of millions of people were watching this thuggery that is becoming more and more common place in "the game."

*eyes rolling*

Children have posters of these jokers on their bedroom walls.

Blast.

A couple days later then, it happens again; my reality got burst into. News of that evil act done by ISIS comes across the news feed and I physically have to look away. I cannot watch, it is so heinous.
BURNING PEOPLE ALIVE IN CAGES.

For the rest of the night my heart is absolutely devastated.
~~~


We have found the church we will be attending for our brief stay in this city and we have a Sunday School teacher that we just love. A native of Northern Ireland (remember my time there?!), he brings such wit and wonderfully non-American points of view to the conversation that we can't tell whether we like the church so much or just our Sunday School teacher. Ha.

Anyway, the other day we were discussing the topic of Total Depravity, which, for brevity's sake, I will just tell you means that there is Absolutely No Good In You. It's a big theology for Christianity, a tenet of what we believe (go study it), but can sometimes be a little hard to swallow.

Because to put the boots of it to the ground means that we are not better in the sight of God than any person, terrorist, child, or dictator on the planet. And that hurts my ego more than I want it to.

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans says. And the word ALL is inclusive. It means me, it means you. Jesus himself says that "None are good but God alone."

So we were talking about the implications to our daily life of believing this and...to be honest...it makes me swallow hard the lump in my throat.
Because there I was at the gym, trying not to cry for the second time that week, having to turn my head away because I could not stand to see the sight of the evil that was coming across the screen, all the while remembering this truth and having to accept this recently talked of fact that I have within ME the capability to do everything those terrorists were doing.

Everything.

Because it's true.

And it's why we have a phrase that says "Where but for the grace of God go I." Because we ALL can go there.

Yikes.

It's why we have reason to praise the Lord. If he has saved you, he has rescued you from going there.

A couple days later I was thinking about all of this as I sat in my living room and was journaling to the Lord. I wonder what can be done about all the evil, all the terror. I pray about it, but it all seems so removed. It's not in my reality. It's a situation that can only really be rescued by Christ, for you cannot sweet talk evil... you either destroy it or it will destroy you. And only Jesus can destroy evil. The situation so desperately needs him.

And as I continued this discussion with God, I looked across my living room and there sat this chair that I want to reupholster.

I am caught off guard by the transitory nature of my thoughts that not two minutes after I am praying for a totally barbaric and depraved situation across the ocean I find myself praying for God's guidance in how to recover a chair.

"Does this need to be prayed for, too?" I thought rather sheepishly. "Doesn't God have bigger problems to deal with than me coordinating our living room furniture?"

I feel hard-hearted even asking for his help with those. Surely I don't need God for this one.

And my things, really, are so small. So insignificant. So innocent I don't need to bother the Almighty and ask for his help with those.

"So...not evil," I hear my sin nature whisper into my ear...

I turn back to my Bible and read this:
"How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we might serve the living God!" (Hebrews 9:14)

Acts of death? I ask myself. What acts of death have I done? That doesn't seem quite the appropriate phrase for someone like me, does it? Certainly I can't be that bad that my acts would lead to death....


Fortunately the Holy Spirit snapped me out of my self-induced ego inflation at that point.


I look over and see my chair that needs to be reupholstered...and I think about the laundry I need to fold...and the wedding thank yous I need to write...and I see the piano I should play more often. All these things are in MY reality.

Is it possible that these types of things, too, if but for the Grace of God would have been the acts that lead to MY death? Because the truth is that no, I probably never would have burned someone alive in a cage (although my total depravity could have had me do that), but the reality is that those kinds of people are not the only ones who will be eternally separated from God.

Reupholsterers and bakers and laundry maids and women who take cinnamon rolls to the neighbors and people who play piano---all those kinds of people will get the justice due them in hell, too. Right next to un-repentant, un-regenerated terrorists.
Where but for the Grace of God go I.

Because my acts, innocent though they may seem, can separate me from God just the way NFL thuggery and terrorists and all those "bad people" are separated from God.

I think back to me thinking that I didn't needed to pray for God's help with my reupholstering. Isn't that the beginning of an eternity separated from God?

Isn't that the starting point of all the evil acts? All the acts that lead to death? Believing that there are areas of our life we don't need God in? Thinking that we know best, we can figure it out, we have it all under control, we have a better truth found outside of his Word, we don't really need to play by his rules? Isn't that the heart of the totally depraved?

"No thank you, God. We have got this. We know best. We can do it ourselves."



Me and the terrorist thugs alike.

Purify our hearts, Lord Jesus. We so desperately need you in all these situations. In ones of terror and ones of daily keeping our houses.


Because where, but for your grace, Lord, go I.

Not by my hands.

If you have been following me through the years (and if you are new to this here little web log--this is will be news to you) you will know that I spend an awful lot of my time dealing with food. Cooking it, eating it, writing about it, thinking about it, planning vacations around it, etc.
For instance, you will remember my treatise on Gravy, my wonderful photoshoot with Eliza and subsequently wonderful thoughts on Basil, when I went into detail about why I think there will be blueberry pie in Heaven, and who can forget my ravenous novels I wrote about wild black raspberries TWO YEARS IN A ROW? I know you most certainly didn't.
Love it love it love it so much. And while this was not a reality that was "funly" won, it is where I most happily find myself currently.
That being said, I am at it now more than ever. Why, you might ask? Well, I have a husband who is not picky and also likes to eat just like I do, for one. Secondly, since I am not working outside of the home right now I have more time on my hands to try all kinds of kitchen experiments that I have wanted to for years. Ergo, I spend almost all of my days thinking about food now. I have watched every Tiny Paris Kitchen video there is, along with every video a certain Microbotic chef I have seen on TV has to offer. I have made oodles of cookies and cinnamon rolls for the neighbors. Hubbs, who loves ice cream dearly, thought it would be a wonderful idea to get a homemade ice cream maker.
It wasn't a good idea. Do you know how much of the most decadent, divine ice cream we have polished off in the last month?! I would have overwhelming fears of gaining twelve pounds a month if we didn't also have a gym membership, but now I just fear when the gym membership runs out. Please, Lord! Give us strength to resist the frozen cream delicacy!!!

And then of course there is this book I picked up at the library entitled simply, Cooked. Written by the same guy who wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, he is, albeit, pretty liberal in all of his thinking, not connected to Christ in any obvious way, and believes the entire evolutionary process. Taking all of that with a grain of salt, however, he has some very interesting findings about the history of food and how we have gotten ourselves to be this irreversibly fast-food, pre-packaged society as a whole. It's just the sort of reading I devour (pun intended). I mean I read like 280 pages....this weekend.

Ravenous. Per usual.

One chapter in particular I literally could not put down.
Bread.
That's all he was talking about. Chalk it up to the fact that I have been dabbling in bread making for the first time in my entire life, it was so fascinating I couldn't stop thinking about it even after I could eventually put it down. Later that day Hubbs and I were on our way to the gym (to work of the ice cream) when he interrupts my silent reverie and says, "What are you thinking about?" to which I honestly had to reply "Wet dough theory."
Praise the Lord for this man. He gets answers like that all the time and they don't shock him, nor do they bore him.

Anyway. Wet Dough Theory. I will not go into it anymore than to say it's a completely different way of making bread (and heralded as the most nutritious way) involving whole grains and homemade sour dough.
Fascinating. The stuff dreams are made of to quirky gals like me.

Days later I was still thinking about it. Trying to prioritize how I would be able to fit a sour dough schedule into my life, will it be sustainable through the years to keep it up, how can I best maximize the nutrition for my family, etc etc etc ad nauseum. Couple that with my incessant thoughts about planting a garden when I get back to the Homeland this summer, and my permanent disdain for going to the grocery store and having to pay money for things like APPLESAUCE and FROZEN BERRIES. Tisk tisk. Such a thing is unheard of to this country girl.
So I plan and strategize all the time now about how I am going to conjure up all this food and not pay virtually any money for it (because I HATE paying for food---it makes me feel dependent).
And in this thinking about wet doughs and homegrown food and applesauce made by hand picked apples, I start this feel this sense of comfort......security.....come over me, knowing I will have the ability to provide for my family what it needs. "We will be ok," I comfort myself with, as I run through the rolodex in my brain of ways I can be self-sustainable. "We will be ok."




But then I start to feel a little brooding. As if some deep darkness is crawling up my throat.

And lines start to become blurred in my head.

And I feel my hand clenching just a little tighter around this dough that will bake into our daily bread.


In tandem with the now-in-place lump of darkness in my throat is this nagging realization I don't want to ponder: But what if this summer there is a drought and all my plants die?
Or what if there is exorbitant amounts of rain like two years ago....and all my plants DROWN? Or can't get planted at all? What if we get an early spring and a late frost and it kills all the apple blossoms resulting in no applesauce? What if my tomatoes get blight? Or slugs eats my cabbages? What if my sour dough starter collects the wrong bacteria from the air and we are left with no bread?

And the tighter I clench said dough....the more I feel it rushing through my fingers, as if I have no grasp on it at all.

The natural Bethany doesn't want to admit that things like Our Daily Bread and the best gardening weather and bugs or no bugs on the produce are....not up to me.
I want them to be up to me.
I want my plans to succeed. I want to be able to sustain my family, provide for them in my own way, take seriously the things that are going into our bodies, and not be dependent upon....THEM.

Who?


Whom?


*blast.


That's where the lines keep getting blurred.

WHO exactly is it I want to independent from?

I tell myself its because I want to do what I feel is best for us right now and I want to help provide, bear some of the burden.

But I know myself well enough to know that such a pure answer is probably not entirely from my heart at all.

I want to be independent. From the grocery stores. From the help of others. But worse still---from HIM.

It's the sin-nature-self coming up again.

I WANT TO DO IT MYSELF. And take pride in that, darn it!

I want to be able to tell the weather and the bugs and the bacteria where to go and what to do. I want to be able to make us OK. I want that power.

*sigh.
The only comfort I find at this point is knowing that the gut-check I just got means there has to be something more than the crawling darkness in me. Maybe my heart of stone is more like not-quite-dry-but-almost-dry-concrete right now instead of granite.

It's the age old problem. We all want to be little gods, don't we? We all want to take matters into our own hands. Have power to make us BE OK. Self-comfort. Self-secure. Self-sufficient.

Thousands of years ago there was this same exact situation:
"Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. It shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God."

(Deuteronomy 8:11-20)

That bit right there I know is where the slip up ALWAYS comes: "But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you the power to make wealth...."

Gardens and wet doughs and paying for food or not paying for food and, for you, whatever it is you have put your hand to, today this is where I stand (and where I have to glue myself in place to remain): Do what I can with my hands, while ALWAYS remember----I did not give myself these hands.

"One plants. One waters. BUT GOD GIVES THE INCREASE." (I Cor 3:6)

Love you, Wolfies.