Learning to Love

God has taught me a lot about love through my stepchildren.  I have heard many people say that they have learned to love through their biological children.  Do I believe that God places His innate love in the hearts of parents?  Yes, we see a glimpse of God’s love in a parent’s ability to love unselfishly.  However, how many times have we seen the headlines that report parent’s doing the most awful things to their own biological children?  The Bible tells us that God is love and that we are able to love because He first loved us.  People who don’t know God can’t love like God loves.  The Bible also teaches us that love for our children are to be taught from one generation to the next.

 

God has adopted us into His family. This type of adoption was a permanent commitment on behalf of the parent, however, the child could decide at any time to leave the relationship.  What a picture this is of the love of God!  He gives us the choice to opt out of the family but He will never abandon us.  What a contrast from our society’s adoption system that says if the kid turns out to be too difficult, return them to the state.  Or if your kids give you too many problems go ahead and send them across the country to their other parent.

So back to my step-kids, my heart broke for their time, their affection, their skinned knees, and the tears streaming down their eyes.  I rejoiced at their successes and cried at their failures. They came into my life as teenagers and through their lives I was able to see how much God rejoices over our successes and cries at our mistakes.  How He loves us even when we don’t love Him back.   

Has it always been perfect?  Of course not!  Were their times that I wanted to throw up my hands in frustration?  Sure.  It is important to remember that love never fails.  When you chose to love it might be hard at times, but it is always worth it!

Fatherhood

Too often we recognize the wrong people as heros, such as movie stars and sports figures that don't live a life worthy of recognition.  How tragic that the true heros around us often go unnoticed.  

Fatherhood doesn’t come easy.  It doesn’t come with lots of thank yous for the sacrifices made.  Sadly, the media and our legal system often devalue it.  It doesn’t end when your child turns 18 and it sure doesn’t get any easier just because they are “grown”.  I am thankful to the men who chose to stay by their families no matter what it costs them.  Those that knew that their first job was to parent and not be our best friend.  Those who chose to lead us and guide us even when they knew that our response might be, “I hate you!” as we through a tantrum only to look back and realize that they really had our best interest at heart.  For those who provided security and discipline, and whose strong arms could comfort our tears. 

With love this Father’s Day to my Dad, my husband, and my Father-in-Law.  I love you and I thank God for each of you every day. 

Opportunity Knocks

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

I like this quote because often the harder you have to work for something the more value it has. Marriage takes work.  Managing your home takes work.  Making money takes work.

Each of us have different things that come easy for us and other things that don’t come quite as easy or are just down right difficult.  For me, schoolwork came easily.  In fact, I was told in high school that I would have been a nerd if I didn’t play basketball.  However, when it came to driving this wasn’t the case for me, in fact, I failed my driving test twice.  I didn’t quit just because it was difficult for me.  The freedom that a driver’s license brings to a teenager is an easy goal to work for.  What about the things that are difficult when the result doesn’t bring immediate gratification?  I was helping Trey with Geometry homework the other day and there is no immediate teenage gratification for acing a Geometry test in the same way there is for getting a license.  On a sunny spring day when all you want to do is go outside and all your friends are texting you, how do you sit at a desk and work Geometry problems? 

A favorite quote for our family is “If it were easy, every one would do it!”  We have been saying that a lot around here as Nate furthers his education.  If you are chasing after a dream and it gets difficult, now is not the time to give up! 

Touching Video on Being a Mom

The other day as I was searching for a rebate and I came across this youtube video.  Thought that I would share this link from Procter and Gamble entitled "Best Job in the World".  Very touching message!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  As they say on their website, "Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. But it's also the best."  We don't say it often enough, "Thank you Mom!"  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScs_qX2Okk

Faith like a Recipe

I was contemplating adding a recipe for my newest homemade cooking endeavor when it hit me that our faith is like a recipe.  I remember asking my mom for her chili recipe and she told me all the ingredients but no proportions.  I asked her for some exact measurements and she said that you just put it in till it looks and tastes right.  I remember always wanting an exact recipe as I started out cooking and now I tend to throw different ingredients together until it tastes just right. 

When people ask what my secret ingredient is for a recipe, I like to joke that it is love.  Think of it this way:  love is to faith as warm water is to yeast.  Just as yeast can sit dormant for months and then become activated upon hitting warm water, so our faith can lie dormant until it is added to love.  The Bible tells us that our faith is activated through love.  We can have all the right ingredients. For example, we can know what the Bible says and we can say all the right “Christian” cliché sayings. However, our faith will not activate if we are not loving God and loving others.

When I think about faith, I find often we are looking for an exact recipe for a miracle.  The thing that I have found when talking to people who have a deep walk with the Lord and have experienced His hand move mightily on their behalf, they can give me the ingredients for faith but not the proportions.  Faith isn’t about how many hours a day you read your Bible or how long you pray or how many days you fast.  Faith is learning to trust in a loving God by knowing who He is and His character.  Of course, we cannot really know someone unless we have spent time with him or her.

One evening around midnight I was ready to fall into bed exhausted and Brittany told me, “I just remembered I have to bring brownies to school tomorrow.”  Off to the store we went for the necessary ingredients and as I began to make the brownies my eyelids grew very heavy.  As soon as I heard the timer go off, I pulled the pan out of the oven and went straight to bed.  I woke a few hours later to realize that the brownies were a gooey mess.  In my haste to get to bed, I forgot to check to see if they were really done.  I had all the right ingredients but I tried to rush the baking process.  If only I had left the brownies in the oven for 5 more minutes, the results would have been so different.  How often does that happen in our lives where we are tired and want to rush the faith process?  The result: our lives become a gooey mess!  Just because someone else received his or her miracle instantly doesn’t mean that you will receive yours in the same timing.  My husband received a miracle this past year that was 38 years in the making!  I want to encourage you today to not give up! 

As we go about our busy days, preparing our meals, may we have faith like a recipe!  Faith that tastes just right activated by love and not a gooey mess.

Homemade Hot Pockets

Today I thought I would try my hand at some homemade Hot Pockets.  I would suggest if you have a teenager in the house that you plan to double this recipe.  I found that the recipe made 12 and after lunch only 5 remained to freeze for snacks.

Plan about an hour for prep, cook, and clean up. No waiting on dough to rise.  Hint:  I clean up while I cook so I can sit down and enjoy with my family when they are done and not come back to a mess.

Things that I like about this recipe:

v    Freezable – let cool completely, freeze, reheat in microwave for about 2 minutes

v    Teenager approved – Trey told me that one-day I would be on HGTV!

v    Inexpensive – don’t forget to watch for sales and coupons for your fillers

v    Great way to “hide” leftovers . . . I am thinking of making some with chicken, broccoli and cheese.

Recipe for Homemade Hot Pockets:

Dough Pocket:

Dissolve 3 packages of active dry yeast in 1 cup of warm milk

Mix in 3 ½ Tablespoons sugar and 1-teaspoon salt

Gradually add in 3 cups of flour

Filling:

Use your imagination

Example: Ham and Cheese or Pepperoni, Cheese, and Spaghetti Sauce

Mix until dough pulls away from side of bowl and continue to kneed for about 5 minutes.  Divide dough into 12 pieces and roll into a ball.  Using a rolling pin, roll into rectangles.  Put filling on ½ of the rectangle and then fold other half over and pinch all sides together securely so no filling comes out during backing.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Please let me know if you try it and how it works out for you and also if you come up with a good variation.