Author: Wendy

The Art of Cooking

Posted on by Wendy
This guy always comes to mind when we think about living life slowly.
This guy always comes to mind when we think about living life more
slowly.

When I think about the slowest creature around, I think about the turtle. He really can’t help, but to stop and smell the roses, because his top speed is slow. I’ve been reading a book about living life with intention and slowing down and how that’s a very difficult concept here in our American culture. The book is, Notes from a Blue Bike, by Tsh Oxenreider.

There are different sections, but the one that has really spoken to me is the one about food and mealtimes. In other cultures, meal times are special and to be savored. They plan on it taking a fairly long time to prepare from scratch and they plan on taking a fairly long time to enjoy their meals as well. Cooking is an art form of sorts and the table is where the family comes together and soaks up the art and the company.

I’m fascinated by this concept because mealtime for my family has always been on the daily checklist of things to do. We usually eat a home cooked meal every night and we eat as a family, but nobody is ever really excited about meal time. We usually serve the same things week after week. Part of the reason is my children are incredibly picky, but part is mere convenience.

I just had a similar conversation with a friend of mine and she said they do the same at her house. We have thousands of recipes at our fingertips with our friend the internet, but we stick with the familiar, with the easy. Why do we do that?

Maybe it’s because we are so busy. Trying new recipes means new ingredients and wandering up and down the grocery aisles in search of them takes time. We never have enough time.

This author was also really big on buying locally from farmer’s markets and eating what is in season. I’ll have to admit I kind of like eating strawberries year round, but she has a point when she asks how fresh they can be in December. Where did they come from and how long ago were they picked?

Food is a gift from God. Genesis tells us that God made trees that produced, “delicious fruit.” If we are mindlessly shoveling it in and not tasting and savoring, maybe we are doing our Creator a disservice. If it comes from a bag or a box or as my mama says, “has more than four ingredients,” how nutritious is it? How good is it?

By good, I don’t mean like Oreos taste good, but I mean good tasting and good for you. Oxenreider argues that we are biologically made to eat whole food and we should strive to. Maybe she’s right.

Think about it, your grandmother didn’t serve you anything from a box. As a society we have convinced ourselves that we don’t have much time to spend in the kitchen, yet our kitchens are larger than any point in history. Why is that? If we have several hours a day to spend on Facebook and watching television, perhaps we could spend more time in the kitchen.

Our waist lines may thank us and our doctors may see less of us. We may discover that cooking as God intended is an art form all its own. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Letting Go of the Hard Stuff

Posted on by Wendy
Some of the snow from last week stubbornly refused to melt.
Some of the snow from last week stubbornly refused to melt.

As I was walking yesterday and thanking God for the gorgeous weather and the reprieve from this horrendous winter, some snow caught my eye. It was in the high fifties yesterday. There shouldn’t have been any snow left, but there was. Under closer examination, I realized that the snow was in the shade and the sun was unable to shine on it and so it remained.

God often communicates with me through nature and that stubborn snow whirled around in my thoughts for the rest of the day. Our hearts can sometimes be icy. When we accept the love and grace of Jesus, they are warmed and become vibrant. But sometimes we choose to keep certain parts shaded and away from the all forgiving light of Christ.

Things like guilt stay high on that list. You know what I’m talking about. We give our hearts to Jesus and we do everything we’re supposed to. We pray, read our Bibles and go to church. But we still feel like we are not good enough for complete forgiveness because of something we did in our past. So we keep that little part of our heart out of the forgiving light. It stays icy.

Another example is our worries. We will profess to know that God loves us beyond a shadow of a doubt, but we worry that He won’t provide for us. Will we have enough money? Will we have enough to eat?

I struggle with worries about my kids. I worry about mean kids. I worry about their future. I worry about their safety.

This thought pattern doesn’t come from God. It comes from Satan. If we give all of our hearts to God, even the guilty parts, the worries and there are many other examples, then we are free to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives. We are free to live in peace and joy. Satan is not big on peace, joy or forgiveness. They are fruits of the Holy Spirit and he will always directly oppose that fruit.

This is where the Bible can be very helpful. If God is capable of having the ravens feed Elijah, if He is capable of  having the walls of Jericho crumble with a horn blast and a shout, if He is capable of feeding five thousand with a couple of fish and five loaves of bread, if Jesus walked on water, can we truly believe that He can’t provide for His believers? Do we really believe that He isn’t willing or capable of forgiving  or healing whatever we are carrying around?

We always have a choice of whether we are going to listen to the voice of God or the lies of Satan. One choice gives us freedom to be all we were created to be. The other leaves us with icy spots. I say, let’s get rid of all of the shade and choose the light. Let’s choose God. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Buds of Promise

Posted on by Wendy
This is what the landscape looked like on Thursday.
This is what the landscape looked like on Thursday.

My family and I took a walk on Sunday at the State Botanical Gardens. We had been housebound for several days due to a freak snow and ice storm. We were itching for some spring. The temps were in the fifties and so we ventured out. We weren’t the only ones. There were many others who decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day that we had been blessed with.

At almost the very first turn, we were greeted with these buds.

 

These buds hold the promise of Spring.
These buds hold the promise of Spring.

I was of course, delighted and had to stop and snap some photos. My kids kind of rolled their eyes. They wondered what the big deal was. They were green buds. So what?

The beauty of youth is that they don’t ponder things like seasons. If it’s snowing outside, they will build snowmen, make snow angels and have snowball fights. If it’s sunny and warm outside, they will ride bikes, climb trees and jump on the trampoline. Their enjoyment and play doesn’t depend that much on the weather.

I’m not like that at all. I hate being cold and have to wear a jacket if it’s less than sixty degrees outside. It’s a very good thing that I was born in the Deep South.

But to my adult eyes, these green buds symbolize so much. They are a physical reminder that spring isn’t too terribly far away. They tell me that the barren landscape in which I now stand will soon be bursting with the breathtaking beauty that only God can provide. They are a sign of hope. They are physical sign that God is at work behind the scenes.

These buds make me smile. I am reminded every time I make the effort to get out in nature, into God’s space, that His fingerprints are everywhere and the easiest place to see them is in His creation. I think maybe part of the reason we have lost some of the wonder and feeling of His presence here with us is that we stay indoors all of the time, surrounded by man-made creations.

He is present everywhere, but it’s easier for me to really feel His presence in the outdoors surrounded by the life and art that only He can create. I wonder if it’s the same way for everyone else.

It also doesn’t go without notice that this little epiphany occurred on the Sabbath. As I’ve written many times before, when I make myself observe Sabbath time, I am always rewarded. It also gives me comfort that whenever I renew my strength during Sabbath time, I am so much better equipped to serve God in the coming week with an open heart and less stress.

I am determined to enjoy this spring like weather over the coming week and to watch for God in it. I know winter is not over yet, but temperatures in the sixties and seventies in February are a gift and I am thankful. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

The Eye of a Needle

Posted on by Wendy
Icy limbs and power lines don't mix well.
Icy limbs and power lines don’t mix well.

The Deep South was struck by yet another snow and ice event last week. A good chunk of the entire state was shut down for days and thousands upon thousands of people were without power for days as well. My parents had no electricity from Wednesday until Sunday. These events happen from time to time. The power companies called in reinforcements from Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi just to name a few.

What really surprised me about this particular outage was the anger that I saw expressed on Facebook. By all accounts, these power company employees worked throughout the days and nights with little sleep. They were doing their best. I didn’t hear any reports of them sitting around at doughnut shops on extended coffee breaks.

When I was a kid and there was a snow storm, we lost power. It wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of when. We sat around the fireplace at night and ran around during the day. We were on well water so when the power went out, there was no water either. We were also usually the last ones to get turned back on, too. We dealt with it.

It’s amazing to me at how just twenty-five years or so later, the power going out has become catastrophic and the power companies working to restore it are somehow agents of evil. What has happened to our can-do attitude?

My dad is in his seventies and he says he remembers his family getting their first light bulb. How in the world did they survive?

As I was contemplating all of this, a verse from the Bible kept playing through my mind. “In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” Mark 10:25. Those are red-letter words, spoken by Jesus himself, so we had better pay attention.

What is he talking about? Does God hate rich people? I don’t think so. I think that when you have to depend on God for your “daily bread,” and He provides it, it’s easier to grow your faith. When every one of your physical needs is met and taken for granted, like we always have plenty to eat and a roof over our heads and heat and electricity, we have to make a sincere effort to believe in something greater than ourselves.

Our souls need feeding either way, but it’s easier to neglect our souls than our physical bodies. We are so blessed in this country and when compared with the majority of the world, we are all wealthy here. Christianity is growing fastest in Asia, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The people in these countries have far less material possessions than we do and their basic needs often are not met. Is this a coincidence? They know their need for God because they must depend on Him daily.

No one wants to be cold or inconvenienced and being without heat can be dangerous. But, this may be the ideal opportunity to take stock of who we are and decide who we want to be. The temporary days of uncomfortable inconvenience for us are what life looks like everyday for a huge population of the world.

We are so blessed that we sometimes forget to be thankful. Our abundance may be like the eye of that needle. Let’s remember to give thanks. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

A Valentine’s Day Celebration

Posted on by Wendy
There's more to Valentine's Day than hearts and flowers.
There’s more to Valentine’s Day than hearts and flowers.

Today is Valentine’s Day. Since I have a fourteen year old without a boyfriend, I’m keenly aware that it’s the world’s most romantic day in high school and she is single. (Her daddy is thrilled). Keep in mind, most of her friends are single too. In fact, four of her closest friends have planned a “Lonely Hearts Sleepover” at my house this evening.

I don’t know why there seems to be much less dating in high school these days. I place part of the blame on our friends at Disney. Their whole lives, these girls have had Ariel and Belle and Prince Charming. Let’s face it, Prince Charming is difficult to find as an adult, but in high school he’s awfully close to nonexistent. That, along with the fact that texting has completely replaced talking and boys and girls don’t know how to talk to each other anymore, in my mind, has created the perfect storm of non-dating, unrealistic expectations along with no communication.

Whatever the reasons, I am hosting five, delightful, single girls this evening. They have each agreed among themselves to bring chocolate, sour treats, salty snacks etc… They are each bringing a movie to watch and will likely stay up most of the night talking and laughing.

I wish I could make my daughter understand the importance of these evenings. She and her friends have forged together a little community that started back in middle school. Boys will come and go, but these friendships have the potential to be lifelong.

Some of my closest friendships were built in high school. Just a few months ago, I got together with some of these girls and talked about old times like they were yesterday. We laughed like the girls who will sleep in my basement tonight.

An internet search for the word love in the Bible turned up 551 times in the NIV version. There are so many different kinds of love. Romantic love is just one kind and the one that gets all of the press on Valentine’s Day. But, the love present in community is a beautiful thing on its own.

My daughter is too young yet to understand the life-sustaining support that community can offer. Friendship is one of God’s most beautiful gifts. Tonight, she will be making memories that she will probably be laughing about twenty years from now, even if she doesn’t know it at the moment.

She has a ton of Valentine’s Days ahead of her, but these high school years are short and friendships are special. So, we will order pizza, close the basement door and let the giggling begin. I hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day and celebrate it in a way significant to you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

A Love Story

Posted on by Wendy
Like this flower, a happy ending can always brighten your day.
Like this flower, a happy ending can always brighten your day.

I got a text yesterday from one of my high school friends, inviting me to a graduation party for her daughter. I think I must have gasped audibly when I read it because the man sitting across the room from me looked up from his phone. This child who is graduating from high school is her baby.

Let me give you a little background here. This friend is a part of one of my favorite love stories. She and her husband dated all through high school. The winter after high school, they announced a very quick wedding. We were all kind of stunned. I was away at college and couldn’t quite fathom it all. This was the late eighties. We had choices.

They made theirs. They chose life. They chose love. The support they got from their families was overwhelming. Let me tell you, it was amazing. They moved into a tiny house behind her grandmother’s house. Her parents and siblings and his parents painted it inside and out. They put in carpet and furniture. They made it a home.

They both worked and she had to quit school. Her sister kept the baby during the day. It was hard work for them to keep it together, but they did. They moved into a bigger house. About five years later, they welcomed a second child and one year after that, their third.

For our twenty year class reunion, (It was really 18, but that’s another story.) they invited a bunch of us girls, to stay at their new home, that they had just built. It was a gorgeous house in the country complete with a pool and pool house. Again, their families had helped them build it with the many skills that they had from carpentry to laying tile.

Their story is one of my favorite love stories for so many reasons. Yes, it’s a story of a boy and a girl who made difficult choices and made a commitment to stand by each other, for better or worse. They went on to make a beautiful life together and beautiful children against impossible odds. But, it’s also a story of the possibilities of what can happen when families pull together and support each other. It’s a story of two families who chose life and love too, although it must have been a difficult choice for them as well.

We have so many choices to make during our lifetimes. We make good ones and we make bad ones. Sometimes encouraging and supporting loved ones in their choices are the most important ones we ever make. I was thrilled to attend the high school graduation celebration of my friend’s first child. He has gone on to finish college and has become a delightful young man.

Now, I have been invited to attend the graduation celebration of her youngest child who is also going on to college. I am moved to tears at the enormity of it all. The impossibility of this story just proves that with enough commitment and perseverance, love will find a way and it’s beautiful.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Savoring a Snow Day

Posted on by Wendy
Our neighborhood creek with snow.
Our neighborhood creek with snow.

 

We have been granted another snow day in Northeast Georgia. It’s not snowing. It’s sleet mixed with rain, but the state of Georgia got caught unprepared for winter weather a couple of weeks ago and motorists were stranded for days. The Peach State became the butt of late night television show jokes. Our leaders are erring on the side of caution.

This plan works out perfectly for me. I will likely have two to three glorious days with my babies at home with me. They are twelve and fourteen and have busy social lives of their own, so to have them home is always a blessing. Not to mention, my high school freshman will only have a few more years to live at home and have snow days. In no time, she will be off to college.

It seems like just yesterday that they were little and watching Dora the Explorer and now they are half-grown. This mama has enough sense to savor gifts from God like snow days. They are rare for us in the Deep South and that makes them precious.

I have chili in the crock pot. My son is telling me all about something he is building on Minecraft. My daughter is playing IT support on my new laptop. My hubby is working from home. The people I hold most dear are right here with me doing their own thing, but close. I’m thankful.

We will likely lose power sometime tonight or tomorrow, but we have candles, flashlights and Uno Cards. We have a pool table. We have plenty of bread and peanut butter, crackers and chips. Our kids still love family game night. We sometimes have to stop playing Scattergories, because our sides hurt so badly from laughing at each other and our ridiculous answers. We have each other.

Sure, boredom will likely set in at some point. We also are the proud owners of three dogs ranging from twenty pounds to a hundred twenty pounds. The floor will be a wet mess, but thankfully, cleaning up hardwood floors is easy.

The point is that we have a choice to see life’s curve balls as inconveniences or opportunities. What some consider hardship, we have the option to see as a blessing. I am choosing to see this snow day as a blessing.

Most older people will tell you that if they could have just one thing, they would choose more time. It’s the one thing that we don’t get more of. So, I’m savoring this time with my babies who aren’t babies anymore and I would love to encourage you to do the same.

You don’t have to have a snow day or kids at home, but savor the time with friends and family at every opportunity. It really is a gift from God.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

How Do You Deal With Change?

Posted on by Wendy
Change, like the seasons is inevitable. This bud will become a flower whether it wants to or not.
Change, like the seasons is inevitable. These buds will become flowers whether they want to or not.

I have never been a huge fan of change. I suppose lots of Southerners feel the same. We often take the, “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke attitude.” Sometimes it’s a good one. In my humble opinion, things like children saying “yes sir and yes ma’am,”and saying Grace at meals should never change.

Other things like technology, are bound to change whether I like it or not. My sweet husband bought me a new laptop for our anniversary. I told him that he should get a new laptop and let me keep mine, but he insisted that he wanted me to have the new one. I was so excited and fairly glowed, I’m sure, with his thoughtful gift.

A mere twenty-four hours later, I’m ready to kill him for his thoughtfulness. At this writing, I hate Windows 8. It’s busy. Icons pop up all over the place for no apparent reason. I have to sign into my computer every time I turn it on. (I guess Microsoft is concerned that my dog may read my unprotected blog.) My printer won’t work and I don’t have Windows Office pre-loaded. Thank you so much Mr. Gates.

My old laptop was three years old; ancient in our world of throw-away technology, but it was running my old friend Vista with no trouble at all.

I’ll bet you that in a month, I will love my new computer as well as its operating system and I simply won’t be able to believe that I could have lived without it. But, today I am frustrated!

Don’t we find most life changes frustrating and intimidating? Whether we are trying to eat healthier, give up smoking, start a new job, retire from a current job, have a baby, get married or (you fill in the blank here). Change is rarely easy, but it’s one of the few guarantees we have in life. Nothing ever stays exactly the same.

But, when you think about it, that really is a good thing. Our goal throughout our entire lives should be growth. If we are growing, we can’t be stagnant. We are perpetually in progress like the Camellia buds in my picture. Even in winter, when nature appears dormant, there is still internal activity going on.

And so it is with us too. Even when we have a sedentary period, we can still grow. Growth doesn’t always have to include action. It could include contemplation and reflection. Sometimes it requires some rest like the trees in winter, but growth should always continue.

We should strive to be more like Christ and answer our call to serve until we take our last breath. We should strive to grow, knowing that change is inevitable and trusting that God has a plan and that we are equipped with what we need to participate in that plan, whether we know it our not.

Keeping this in mind, I won’t toss my shiny new computer onto the floor. I will take some time to learn to love Windows 8, (picture me saying this through gritted teeth.) And most importantly, I’m going to try to learn to embrace change. Who’s with me? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

How Controlling Are You?

Posted on by Wendy
My mom was certainly surprised when she found this little guy in her pear tree!
My mom was certainly surprised when she found this little guy in her pear tree!

If I have learned anything at all from my time here on this planet, it’s to expect the unexpected. My parents have two little Papillons (translate super high strung, pups). When my mom let them outside one evening, they wouldn’t come back inside and kept barking at the pear tree. When Mama finally went to investigate, look what she discovered, an opossum!

There’s nothing rare about these creatures, but she was surprised to find one in the pear tree. She was so surprised that she snapped a picture.

When you think about it, life is often like that. Things happen to us all of the time that we aren’t expecting. The big question we have to ask ourselves is how we deal with them. That depends largely on how we look at life.

If we try to control everything around us by constantly planning every moment and holding on tightly with a white knuckled grip, we are likely to be very stressed most of the time. From the amount of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications floating around out there, I suspect that a large portion of our population survives in that way.

At some point though, we have to ask ourselves, are we content to just survive or is there something more? Is the holding on tightly and worrying about everything good enough?

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite philosophers, Mr. Jimmy Buffet, has the line, “If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this living, is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go.” Wise words to be sure.

I think one of the most difficult things to do as humans is to admit we are not in control and it’s probably even harder in the Western World. We get to control so much here, where we go to school, where we live, what career we want, who our spouses are, who our leaders are. We are big on choice and that’s a good thing, but it also gives us a false sense of our place in the universe.

All of the choices we have are a blessing, but they are also a weight we carry. It becomes very difficult to focus on the God who made us and who we are supposed to serve as we make so many choices to control everything around us. We don’t like surprises and walking with God is a path full of them.

When we depend on Him and not ourselves, things rarely turn out like we think they will or just like we planned. They turn out better because we are fulfilling His plan for us. The peace that we so desire that we can’t get from the pharmaceutical industry comes from letting go and letting God. It comes from placing all of our worries and our need to control at the foot of the cross. It comes from knowing that He has a plan and that it’s good and that we are loved unconditionally.

If we truly believe all of that, what more can we possibly need? What do you think about our obsessive need to control? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Long Dark Seasons

Posted on by Wendy
This picture almost makes you feel the warmth of the summer sun.
This picture almost makes you feel the warmth of the summer sun.

As I write this, it’s another gloomy, cloudy day here in Georgia. I purposely put my desk by a window because the sun energizes me to write, but it’s been a long, dark and dreary winter here. We have been hit with two Polar Vortexes. Who had even heard that term before this year?

We were recently hit by a snow and ice event and the rain has been almost constant since, honestly, I can’t remember when we haven’t had at least one day of rain per week. I did have a little chuckle this morning as I heard a New York forecaster explaining the fact that the snow they were getting would soon mix with sleet and they would have something very dangerous called black ice.

Hmmmm, our Northern neighbors can’t drive on black ice either? Who would have thought? It’s been a rough winter all the way around for the majority of our country. Thankfully,  Georgia’s little groundhog, Beau, did not see his shadow on Sunday and so, he predicts an early spring. That little fellow is 93% accurate, so we can keep our fingers crossed.

Sometimes we get stuck in a season of life that we feel like will never end, (like this winter). Sometimes a season can be particularly brutal and long, (like this winter). When we experience periods like this, it can be particularly hard to see a bright side.

But, I also think when we have long periods of darkness, we really appreciate the light when it comes. Perseverance and patience are two of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Maybe we can use this season to really sharpen those skills. Truthfully, we really don’t have much choice, so maybe we should embrace this season knowing it will eventually end.

God told Noah in Genesis 8:22 after the flood, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

In other words, the sun will always rise and summer will eventually come.

I do know this, when we are sitting on our porches in the summer and sipping sweet tea, there should be much less mosquitoes to bite us and less fleas to bite our dogs. We might look back in June and decide that the Polar Vortex wasn’t so bad after all.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂