ENCOURAGED IN HEART

Last month, I made brownies from scratch….icing too.

Last month, I served homemade iced brownies…for dinner.

Hey, they had walnuts!

You don’t understand why this is so epic. (Has the cool factor expired on the word “epic” yet?)

It’s epic because I’m a fruit-and-or-veggie-at-every-meal-kinda-momma.  So much that I’ve been known to serve green beans on the side of eggs and toast.  I remember being on the phone with my friend, Joann, while preparing that meal. Jo expressed concern and provided laughter!

Sticking to my scruples of a fruit and/or veggie at every meal; I served up a side of unsweetened apple sauce cups.

Are you feelin’ me?

Walnuts…

Eggs…

Apple sauce cups…

This meal has the makings of things that are found in the good parts the USDA food pyramid, people.

Which reminded me of Bill Cosby’s breakfast song, “Dad is great, brings me chocolate cake!”

Ummmm, chocolate cake for breakfast…

Remembering how awesome I thought that Bill Cosby’s skit was as a child, I upped the ante, grabbed the sprinkles and called my guys to the dinner table.

When they saw what was for dinner, their eyes spoke some serious messages like,

“Huh?”

“Is this a trap?”

“Has Mom cracked?”

As the Finkster inspected the kitchen for the “Candid Camera” television camera, I proclaimed, “Yay!  It’s brownies for dinner!  Do we ever do this?”

Three heads simultaneously swayed in the east to west hula dance.  “Nooooo.  Let’s eat – YAHOOO!”

I lit a candle, cracked an applesauce cup open and we prayed over “dinner”; I’ve never heard such heartfelt gratitude in their, “Amen!” before.

It’s epic not only because I let go of my anxiety, that my boys will learn their mother’s emotional eating patterns (yes, I actually negotiated that one brownie meal would make them emotional eaters…it’s difficult being inside this mind of mine). It’s epic because the boys have referenced that night as if we conquered Mount Everest, solved world hunger or rid the world of homework with their, “Remember that night, when we had brownies for dinner…”

The epic-ness continues with the Finkster (ie: I’ll post a status update on Facebook quarterly or perhaps monthly if feeling saucy enough) who decided to post of his wife’s awesomeness due to the brownie dinner.
(Did my man forget that dinner, a long, long time ago, when I bought all those special and spiffy ingredients, when I hand chopped up all those veggies and had the salmon baked just so????)

I made a “sweet” dinner and memory.

Is it too obvious to state that meal planning just isn’t one of my “things”. I’m not suggesting making brownies for dinner, but I am suggesting giving yourself a break. One way I give myself a break is by making Mondays “breakfast for dinner night” and Fridays “pizza and salad for dinner night”. Those are just two ways that I’ve made my life a tad easier.

Before I go…

Do you meal plan? How do you meal plan?

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever served for dinner?

And…

What’s one area where you can give yourself a much-needed break? Or, leave a comment about an area that you need help in and let’s help each other out. You can leave a comment in response to a comment and let’s build a community of support!

Thank you so much for your prayers, my father is doing well. The surgery was a little longer and a bit more intricate than thought, but Pop is doing well. I was able to speak with him last night and he sounded groggie, but good. His recovery fully initiated as he begged both the pre and post op nurses for coffee. He was successful only with the post op nurse, and that was after he handled his ice chips well.

Well it’s clear that this nut didn’t fall too far from the java bean tree…

I was reassurred of his recovery this morning, as he was pimping his morning nurse for, “Real food…I wouldn’t feed this food to my worst enemy.” Grandma Karl would have been proud of her son, that he did use his manners as he closed his request with, “Thank you love, sorry I’m being grumpy.”

Thank you, for your prayers covered my father! God sends His saints to be His hands and feet. Yesterday was no exception. My dear friend for the past twenty, cough, cough…) years, Rocco (yes, he’s Italian), is a surgeon in New Jersey. He saw my Facebook status and the next thing I know, my sister emails me that Rocco found Deb and Mary to say Pop looked good in the recovery room.

It meant so much to Pop that Rock came to check on him in the recovery room…me too.

I wrote my thanks to Rocco last night that it’s, “Good to have friends in high places!”

(Rocco and I at our high school graduation.)

and a God who treds in the high places!

He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth—
the LORD God Almighty is his name.
Amos 4:13 (New International Version)

Thank you so much for the prayers, and I ask if you would please continue them! I like to know what the people I pray for look like, (part of my charm), here’s my cute Pop:

It’s official.  We own dirt.

Dirt Sweet Dirt.  This beautiful dirt pile marks the spot where futuristic gallons of coffee will be ingested, by yours truly, for the next two to three decades!  Home sweet home!  After all is said, done and built (by October), this is what our new home will look like.

We’re so psyched!

But one thought keeps bouncing around my crazy Jersey girl brain.  Getting to a new place is a whole lotta work.

Rarely, have I ever driven down Easy Street getting to a “new place”.  Whether losing weight, managing finances or even in rebuilding my marriage – the “new place” is a whole lotta work!  Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. 1 Peter 1:7 (Message)

Traveling with God is fun, never boring, and at times, the opposite of easy. Our getting to financial freedom was a whole lot of work compiled of day in and day out choices.  We’ve lived in our modest town home for nine years now.  Seven years ago, the time came when we couldn’t keep living above our means.  So we made a series of choices: turned off the TV, canceled subscriptions, didn’t dine out, said “no” to the extra luxuries like a dry cleaner, school photos or getting my hair colored by anyone besides Loreal.

We finally surrendered as to how to make sense of our cents.  We knew the solution. God .  How God was going to do it? We hadn’t the foggiest idea.  But we did know that doing it “our way” didn’t work.

When we were really in dire financial straits, we got even more radical.  No we didn’t downsize, or go to moped transportation. We didn’t get a second or third job or put our hope into the stock market.  We gave more to God.  We became monthly partners with Joyce Meyer Ministries.  The Finkster said he’d seen big chances in me since I started reading her books and listening to her teachings so that’s why we picked this ministry.

Translation:  Dave saw God use Joyce’s teachings to tame my big mouth and attitude.  He put our money where my mouth was!

We gave $100 every month, above our tithe.   We really didn’t have it to give as we operated in the red every month.  But God took the trust “seed” and in t-i-m-e, God grew it, bloomed it and expanded it.

The suffering won’t last forever.  It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ-eternal and glorious plans they are!-will have you put together and on your feet for good.  He gets the last words, yes, he does. 1 Peter 5:8-11 (Message)

But after a  time of what felt like suffering… freedom came.  First, we were able to eat out once a week.  Then we hooked the cable back up, then the dry cleaner…and so on.  Then, before we knew it, we were busy doing life and didn’t even realize that we were “there” to move into our dream home. We’d finally gotten content with where we were at.  Nine years isn’t so long when you compare it to the Israelites 40 year journey, right?!?!  Right????

Something Pastor Kent said in his powerful Easter Sunday sermon was that, “You can’t have spring without winter.” Spring sure lets you look back and appreciate the winter for what it was, a bleak, gray, preparation time.  All of creation is just striving to “be free” to bloom into their desired design…but there needs to be roots, and those roots need to be  well established before bloom time could happen.

Us too.

All glory be to God, for setting our roots deep and making our finances bloom.  God rocks! Our roots are expanding out, as each time we have a salary increase, we’ve spread roots out to sponsoring two more ministries, and God keeps on blessing us!

We’re now onto the important business of making our current home look like we don’t actually live in it, sometimes referred to as “putting it on the market”.  Tomorrow’s the day.  My hope is in nothing less, Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Is there an area where you need to let go and trust God to work it all out, in His time for His glory? I remember a former Air Force mentor,  Lt Col Parker, told me to, “Bloom where you’re planted.”  We finally did, will you too?