Thirty years ago today I became Mrs. Dale Cunningham.  It seems unbelievable that so many years have passed.  Dale and I set up a home together and jumped right into ministry.  I began, even in those early years to have guests in and open our home to strangers.  What a blessing that part of our marriage has been! 

I began a guest book with our very first home, having our guests sign their name and comments after being our guests to dinner and/or dessert.  We were married on June 20; our first guests were on July 10th.  I have filled many books in these 30 years, but more than that, our guests have filled our home with many precious memories!  Whether it was family visiting from out of state, newcomers to our church, unsaved people we were seeking to reach, or missionaries on furlough or deputation, our dinner table has been graced by very special people!

It was fitting that yesterday, the day before our anniversary, we entertained yet another new family visiting our church.  What a sweet young couple, just starting out their married lives with a desire to serve the Lord and have a marriage that honors Him.  Mom Cunningham also joined us and added to the family picture at our table.  We had sweet conversation including our own salvation testimonies, pre-wedding relationship stories, and talk about our wonderful Savior.  Our guests make the meal special; the food is just a means to get them there! 

We did have dinner, of course, which consisted of :

1 bottle (8 oz) Catalina Salad Dressing
1/3 C apricot preserves

1 envelope dry onion soup mix
8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or cut up fryer)

In a bowl, combine dressing, preserves and soup mix. Place chicken in ungreased 11” x 7” x 2” baking pan; top with dressing mixture. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, baste. Bake 30 minutes longer or until chicken juices run clear. For Sunday, I put it in a covered dish at 265 degrees when I left for Sunday school.  When I got home, I simply basted the juices over the chicken.  Perfect Sunday dish!  It’s great to serve the sauce it cooks in over the rice.  Yum!

The peach butter is a new recipe/experiment!  We loved it!  I had been given some really ripe peaches that I didn’t think would be good for jam, so I made this butter.  I love apple butter, but this is even better, in my opinion.  It’s really easy to make too! 

Peach Butter
4 lbs peaches, peeled and sliced
3-4 cups sugar (I used 3)
1 scant Tbl cinnamon

After chopping peaches, place in blender to puree’.  Place in heavy pot.  Add sugar and cinnamon.  Cook, stirring often until slightly thickened, about 45 minutes.  Ladle into jars.  Place jars in water bath 10 minutes.

The frozen fruit salad is my sister’s recipe.  It’s so yummy with whole cranberry sauce, bananas, pineapple, nuts and cool whip.  It’s a great do-ahead dish!  Thanks, Dianne!

Frozen Fruit Salad

Frozen Fruit Salad

1 can jellied cranberry or cranberry sauce
1 can crushed pineapple, drained

2 bananas chopped in small pieces
1 c. chopped pecans
1 8-oz. container Cool Whip

Place jellied cranberries or cranberry sauce in mixing bowl and using a whisk, break it up well. Add pineapple, banana, and pecans and combine. Fold in Cool Whip.

You can put this in a 9 x 13 dish or make individual servings by placing cupcake papers in cupcake pan and filling with mixture. Freeze. When ready to serve, peel paper of and serve on a piece of leaf lettuce.

I hope you’ll try some of these recipes.  Open your heart and home to others this week and enjoy the blessing of serving!

You won’t read any more posts this week…I’m headed away with my sweetheart on a little excursion to celebrate our anniversary.  I know you don’t blame me for not taking time to write while we’re away!  I’ll post again a week from today, Lord willing!

With a grateful heart,

So often I’ll meet someone and they’ll put me in mind of another person I already know.  Years ago when I watched Anne of Green Gables for the first time and saw the personality of Matthew Cuthbert, I was put in mind of a very special person –  my dad. Remember how Matthew is always doing things for Anne secretly?  He is a soft-spoken man and when he does have something to say, he chooses his words carefully.  He has a tender heart and is so kind.  He always puts others before himself.  All those traits are what remind me of my dad…he’s just like that.  Let me describe him for you…

My dad is a hard worker.  Every week day my dad went to work and came home to his family every evening.  On Saturdays he would work in the yard or on jobs around the house.  He always had time to play with us girls whether it was baseball,  tennis, sledding or ice skating.  On Sundays our family went to Sunday school and church.  Often after dinner we would head out for a “Sunday afternoon drive.” Dad would become the hero when he pulled into our favorite frozen custard stand or the cider mill where we got hot donuts and fresh apple cider.  Sunday night we were back at church for the evening service.  My dad served faithfully over the years as the treasurer and/or deacon.  Christianity wasn’t a “put-on”, “take-off” kind of thing – this was a genuine relationship that my dad had with the Lord.  I saw him walk the walk before me every day of my life.  He loves my mother with tenderness and sweetness and his girls received the same kind of affection. 

When he has been in the hospital he is always more concerned about those that are there visiting him and their needs that about his own.  He doesn’t want to be a bother or cause a hardship on his family.  He has always encouraged me to go for whatever goal I have had, offering encouragement and praise.  He has a tender heart about things of the Lord.  He loves good music that exalts the Lord.  He loves to have a good time, often laughing till tears stream down his cheeks.  He has an ornery streak in him that enjoys a good practical joke.  Everyone loves my dad – to all my cousins he’s their favorite uncle.  Little babies and children adore him because of his sweet nature.

Concerning his quiet nature, he opened his Bible a few years ago, pointed to a passage of Scripture and said, “This is why I don’t talk a lot.”  The passage was Proverbs 17:27, 28 – He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.  Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.  Yes, he’s a wise man.

Poor little Anne Shirley wouldn’t have had much of a life without Matthew Cuthbert’s influence.  I understand.  I can’t imagine my life without “my Matthew” – my dad.  What a wonderful blessing and gift from the Lord he is. 

Recently I’d just done a little something for my husband and he looked at me and said, “You’re just like your dad.”  “Thanks” I said, accepting the sweet compliment handed me.  If I turn out like my dad, think of how many lives I will have blessed.

I love you, Dad!

In one of the old I Love Lucy episodes Lucy says,
 “Boy, since we said ‘I do,’ there are so many things that we don’t!”
 She was referring to activities she and Ricky used to do.  But if we’re honest, there are lots of other things that happened in courtship that find a hard time making their way into marriage.

 Last Sunday my husband preached about two of those things – love and respect.  Let me share a woman’s perspective on this respect issue.  What does it look like and why is it so important to our marriage?

When a young woman is engaged, she believes her fiance’ can do anything and she tells him so!  “You’re the best ball player on the church league!” “You’re the hardest working employee on your job; they’ll be glad they hired you!” “No one plays tennis like you do!” “You’re so smart”  “You make lifting that heavy equipment look like it doesn’t weigh anything!”  Those comments are all statements of respect – the thing that every man longs for in a relationship more than anything else. He needs to hear those things by his fiance’, but then he needs to continue to hear those things for all they years he is married.  That man marries that gal because he knows she believes in him,and  is standing behind him to encourage him in every endeavor and at every turn.

However, once Married bliss has turned to the Married blues, many wives have a hard time saying respectful things to their husband.  All they see are their spouse’s failures (overlooking their own) and they ask, “how can I respect this man considering all his goof-ups I’ve had to deal with?”  Those “goof-ups” may be uncertainties about how to be a spiritual leader, a bad financial decision that hurt the family, or even a moral failure.  While those are all things that require God’s grace, they are not excuses for us as wives not to obey the command to “reverence your husband.”  We are not responsible for their actions, but we are responsible for our own.  No one – even our husband – can make us sin.  If we disrespect him, it is our choice.  We can’t point an accusing finger his direction and think that the Lord will overlook our sin because of his.

But wives also have a tendency, not only to keep from saying respectful things, but to saying crushing, ego-stabbing comments that pierce the ego that the Lord put within him to make him stand like a man. She begins to knit-pick at his driving, his eating, his sleeping, his work hours, his involvement at church or lack thereof.  Proverbs 19:13b calls these contentions a “continual dripping.”  All through our married lives it’s drip, drip, drip as the ugly, disrespectful words plunk down on the roof of our marriage drowning out the love songs that once graced our homes.  Oh, it may stop for a while, but then, drip, drip, drip – she gets aggravated and… it’s back. 

Perhaps you just caught yourself sighing.  You know the cycle all too well.  You disrespect, then he gives you the cold shoulder.  That’s the crazy cycle that my husband described and this is why our respect is so important.   Love is our greatest need as a woman.  We want to feel our husband’s love for us.  We want to see and hear his love demonstrated.  A hug, a flower, an “I love you” spoken.  We long for that…just like our husband longs to be respected.  Someone has to stop the cycle.  That someone can be us, ladies. 

Ask the Lord to show you how to speak respectful words and demonstrate respect to your husband.  Start with little things.  Thank him for going to work to provide for your family.  Tell him you respect him for being a provider.  Ask the Lord to put a watch over the door of your lips when you want to criticize.  If there’s an area of his life that is a hindrance, PRAY about it.  When God convicts him of it, his decision will stick!  Be your husband’s greatest cheerleader!  Make it easy for him to rejoice with the wife of his youth.  

While we don’t respect our husband with a motive, a wonderful thing will happen in time…he will love you for respecting him, and the crazy cycle will stop.  Oh, and you know what else?  You may even get back to doing all the fun things you did before you said, “I do!”

Because I care,

We never know how God is going to answer our prayers, but I believe an answer to my recent prayers came in the form of gastroenteritis – a type of flu that had me sicker than I’ve ever been before.

For the last couple of weeks I have prayed and asked the Lord to show me His nearness throughout the day.  You see, I so often find myself so caught up in the tasks at hand that I forget to look for Him around me – to keep the sweet communion we shared in the early hours of my devotions in all the little moments of the day.  

I find a little bit of comfort in the fact that even Jesus’ disciples had this problem of remembering how near He was to them.  In Mark 6 we find that Jesus had just performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 with the 5 loaves and 2 fish.  Then Jesus went up into the mountain to pray and told the disciples to go get into the ship.  In short order, after they got on the boat and got half way across the Lake, a terrific storm blew up and they feared for their very lives.  They were afraid, yet they had just been with Jesus and seen Him do a great miracle.  What made them forget what they had just witnessed?  How could they have forgotten the power of the Son of God? Was it preoccupation of fishing?  Conversation with one another?  Lack of faith? At the most critical moment, Jesus walked out on the water and they cried out – not knowing who this was, but Jesus spoke to them,

 “Fear not.  It is I, be not afraid.” 

John says in his account of this story, “Then they willingly received Him into their ship and were safely at land.”

In the middle of the night when I was calling out to the Lord for His strength and help in my illness, He brought my prayer to mind – my prayer to know of His nearness.  He was very close in the night watches while I was so sick.  Even the couple of times that my loving husband didn’t hear me slip out of bed, my God did; just as Jesus saw the disciples on the Sea and knew their peril.   He allowed us to be able to reach my doctor (who “just happened” to be be the one on call that night), to get guidance about going to the ER for IV fluids, and He went before us and allowed me to be seen, treated and released within an hour and a half. 

Years ago I read this statement and found it so true this past week –

I made a very simple dinner yesterday because of still dealing with the flu, but I saved a menu and pictures of something I made a couple weeks ago for a time like this…

Summertime means grilling out!  Even on a Sunday this dinner can be assembled and ready to throw on the grill when you get home from church, and it won’t heat up your kitchen because the whole thing can be done in a foil package outside!

1 pkg. (14 oz) smoked turkey kielbasa, sliced
2 large potatoes, cut into wedges
1 each green, sweet red and yellow peppers cut into 1-in pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
4 tsp lemon juice
4 tsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Place 4 squares of foil on the counter and divide the kielbasa, potatoes, peppers and onion among the four squares.  Drizzle with lemon juice and oil; sprinkle with garlic powder, pepper and salt.

Cook on Medium-high grill for 30-35 minutes or till potatoes are tender.  You don’t need to turn it or flip it.  There aren’t even any pans to clean!

I cooked my corn in boiling water, but next time I think I’ll add it to the meat and veggies as well!  You can’t get any simpler than that!

Let me give you a little tip that I learned at a restaurant recently regarding corn on the cob.  Butter the corn, then sprinkle it with grated Parmesan Cheese.  This takes a good thing and turns it into spectacular!

I haven’t made these in a long time, but here’s a great dessert to go with the grilled dinner!  Banana boats.  You could also add ice cream after it comes off the grill!  That would bump it up to a Banana split boat!

What’s been cookin’ in your kitchen…or on your grill?

With love,