365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 283

Praising God for all the glorious foods he provides us with and my learning how to make fabulously delicious and healthy recipes. Here is what is planned for this week: Baby Back Ribs with butternut squash, Root Vegetable Hash with eggs, Spaghetti squash with turkey tomato sauce, Kale salad, Paleo Pot Roast to name a few. I may be currently broke due to the excess in food spending getting my kitchen stocked with the good stuff but it is worth it. I woke up today without a sugar withdrawal headache. Thank you Lord!

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 256

In my bible reading the word “alert” caught my attention. Alert means being aware, being prepared and being ready with all the tools we will need to fight the devil and his temptations. I have had a problem with eating as you know so after a conversation with my brother and sister-in-law yesterday about eating based on the Paleo diet I was intrigued and wanting to do something about my eating. The Whole30 challenge is a 30-day challenge that gets rid of foods that are hurting our bodies. I went to bed with all this on my mind and had one of those light bulb moments that makes you think well “duh”. The devil is using all the processed foods and all the convenience foods against us. He us laughing at us as we devour our too-large a bowl of pasta or our nightly bowl of ice cream. He loves it when we are in the grocery store and we end up tossing in an apple pie and a candy bar just in case we are in need of chocolate. Pleeeeeeease! I am so aware now of what the devil is doing so now it is time to get prepared and be ready with my arsenal of tools. What are these tools? Three things come to mind: community, prayer and commitment. The Whole30 challenge has an on-line community for support and I have my brother and sister-in-law I can call up when the temptation to make an unwise choice creeps up but I am also thinking about starting a bible study support group who would like to do the challenge with me and we can also read and study the book Spiritual Secrets to Weight Loss by Kara David, MD that explores the fruits of the spirit and how the Holy Spirit can help us in our fight against the temptation of food. I will let you know the plans for starting this group as soon as I have time to contemplate it all. If you are interested in being in the group, let me know. Have a wise-choice making Sunday.

1Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 175

I have a weakness when it comes to food, especially desserts. It has been a constant battle over the last 15 years.  There is usually something that spurs me to stop and start eating better. I got the kick in the behind last week when I was getting ready for work. I started pulling out several cropped pants and one after another found them not to fit until I finally came to one that did. It was the straw that broke the camels back. I chose to be realistic and said just no dessert until Sunday which at that point would be 3 days.  I didn’t make it to Sunday. An apple pie was brought to our house and I was not prepared to handle that.  I cannot do this on my own. I found this scripture that really makes you think about what you do or don’t do to your body by what you eat and how you live. Desserts and entertaining TV shows have been taking me away from the Lord. So, I am calling on the power of the Holy Spirit within me to help me make wise choices regarding food and physical activity.  I will make it my goal to please God with my how I regard my body.

2Corinthians 5:6-10 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 120

Food is definitely a weakness of mine. I love to eat and my body is geared towards being a snacker but the scale has gone up and up and it is time to make it go back down, down. Self-control is not easy but I do find that if I have something to focus on that it helps. After seeing Jesus forgo the temptations that Satan had put to him in the desert on the mini-series, The Bible, I started thinking about the scripture “man cannot live on bread alone”. It has helped me to stop and think about the food I desire to eat and make a better, wiser decision. The Holy Spirit is working in me to help me control my out-of-control eating one day at a time.

Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 105

The idea of self-control has been on my mind lately. It has been my typical pattern to go on a diet and lose some weight and keep it off for a while but than something triggers my lack of self-control and I go back to my old habits of eating like I did when I was 20. I can’t do that anymore! My mind and my body are not on the same page. So, yesterday after having an evening of feeling too full, which is so uncomfortable, I opened my bible and started reading some scriptures about self-control. I get the impression from the bible that people didn’t have a problem with self-control when it came to food back in those days. The bible talks more about controlling our speech and our in-take of alcohol. There are probably lots of various things that we can let control us like the television, email, computer games, Facebook, etc. How much of those things am I giving control of my life over to? Think on these things in the week ahead and start making a list of those things that seem to control you and your life. Put the control back into the hands of the Holy Spirit.

1Peter 15-16 But just as he who is called you is holy, so be holy in all  you do, for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 292

We have been watching the show called Master Chef as a family and watched the season finale last evening. This season was inspiring to watch the ultimate winner who is blind. Like all of us at one point or another, she was not as confident as she should have been. But she persevered and got her confidence back in gear and won the competition. It was an inspiration to watch. No one in my family is that into cooking. We are what I would call get-by cooks, just trying to pull something for dinner every night. But I have been inspired to try my hand at more challenging cooking. There was an episode in which they had the challenge of making 3 different kinds of souffles. No one in my family has ever tried a souffle so I think I am going to get some recipes and stuff together and make it a family competition. I am sure the challenge of living in the thin air of Colorado may be tough to overcome when it comes to souffles but I think it will be a fun and bonding experience for us. I will, of course, take photos and create a scrapbook page to commemorate the activity. So, if you have a good souffle recipe, send it my way. Bon appetit and praise God for the wonderful creations we can make using all the foods he has given us.

Genesis 1: 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 132

Have you ever made up your own word? I think each of us has at one time or another. It may not become popular and evenutally get in the dictionary but our creative nature makes us want to make up our own words. Last night we were to have left overs for dinner. Faith came down and was directed by Dad to look in the fridge. He jokingingly said you could have the spaghetti. This was because the spaghetti was the noodles and sauce together. She's a plain noodle eater so sauce is a big no-no. She very matter-of-factly says "it's been saucified!" How stinking cute was that! Now this food togetherness issue has been going on since about age 2. We certainly had hoped she would have grown out of it by now but I think she will be like I was, a late bloomer. In any case, when I think of this issue of togetherness with her food, it reminded me of our togetherness with the Lord. Are we trying to control our life and saying hold the sauce? or are we gratefully adding Jesus the sauce of our life to our noodles? How much better spaghetti and life is with Jesus being in it! We have to choose to put on the sauce of Jesus to our naked noodle life each day. Praise God for this silly kind of analgoy that came through the not-so-good issue with my daughter. I pray she will eat the spaghetti with sauce some day but thankfully I know that when it comes to Jesus she is living together with him. How about you? Have you been saucified? Pour Him on.
John 17:26 "I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 53

Sometimes bad things happen but it's all fits into God's overall plan for all of us. No nobody died, got hurt, sick or anything serious. I had a bad kitchen day! I decided to go through a couple of recipe books and pick out a few recipes to try and decided to try this Zucchini Bacon Quiche because my hubbie likes quiche. Well, you have to know that last quiche recipe I made didn't come out so great. In this one the crust was actually, a tube of crescent rolls and the rest of it seemed very straightforward. I was skeptable putting into the oven because the recipe only called for 2 eggs. This was mostly zuccini and mozzerella cheese so already the red flags were up. I have to confess I am not very good with following directions. My hubbie thinks it's an inherited trait of being Polish. Very funny. Not. Well, the directions said if the knife comes out clean it's done. Again with the NOT! I cut a piece and put it on a plate and it ran everywhere. My hubbie stood by probably laughing inside and goading me on. Sure enough the crust on the bottom was still raw. Ugh. At this point, my son is going into starving mode which means he is getting cranky. Hmmmm... Just like Mom is getting. Time for a change of menu. So, I put the quiche back in the oven and decide to whip up some eggs and bacon to go with the hash browns that were already made and dinner was served. An hour later... LOL! My hubbie comes in from the kitchen and says did you forget something. Oh No! Yep, the quiche was BLACK! Okay, so I admit it. I am not the greatest cook. My talent is with paper and ink and apparently not food. So, although it was a waste of money and time; it was also a fun memory my hubbie and kids will probably never let me live down. I can already hear them at my funeral saying remember the time with the sweet chicken tetrazzini and the Black quiche. It's never about the final product but about the love and memories you shared. Thank you Lord for this memorable moment.
Psalm 90:17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-- yes, establish the work of our hands.