We made a quick trip to my parents’ home in Kentucky earlier this week. Down time while riding in a car is a good time to clean out my purse, which normally gets little organizational attention. As I shuffled through receipts, gum wrappers, appointment cards, and what-not, I thought about how there was a trail of my recent days just looking at the “stuff” in my purse! The foil-wrapped chocolate mint was a sign of my dinner at Olive Garden a week or so ago. My recent purchase of Black Current tea showed itself in the receipt crammed into one corner. My contact lens prescription reminded me of my appointment, and on and on it went.

• As a crown is worn on top of the head, God’s goodness far excels anything any man could do.
• A crown gives honor to the recipient. What a privilege it is to be a Child of God!
• A crown is made of precious gems. Christ is the Gem – the loveliest of any Who gave His life that I might become a child of God and have a relationship with Him. I can only enjoy the goodness of God because of Christ.

The last part of the verse says, thy paths drop fatness. The Amplified Version says, the tracks of your chariot wheels drip with fatness. What a picture that is! When we look back at where we’ve been and look at the “chariot wheel tracks” behind us, we see that they are covered with fatness – with blessing and goodness. Who else but our God would give us what we do not deserve and not give us what we do deserve? The answer is NO ONE. Those track wheels run deep with His grace and his mercy.

In closing, let me share with you the greatest spiritual blessing of this past year. A man travelled to see us last spring with a special mission in mind. Eighteen years ago, he had been a part of a group that had mistreated us. He came to ask our forgiveness and make things right! What a blessing! I knew the Lord would allow the truth to be revealed one day, but wasn’t sure it would even be on this side of eternity. He crowned us with goodness in allowing us to see that answer to prayer!

What was the greatest evidence of God’s goodness in your life this past year?

With a thankful heart,

I spent a good deal of time early this week cleaning out the fridge – not one of my favorite jobs to do. After the fridge being crammed to its limit with all the Christmas dinner, plus extra cheeses, whipping cream container, refrigerated desserts, etc. there is a lot to contend with. There are crumbs to be wiped out of the drawers, shelves that must be wiped down from dripping this and sticky that, and then the leftovers that have to be dealt with. Why didn’t we just eat the whole ham on Christmas day? Oh, yeah, I bought an extra big one because I wanted leftovers. The blessing is that I can make several good meals with those leftovers I came across. Why one evening we had ham biscuits using the last of the Angel Biscuit Dough and ham pieces. Yum! The ham bone is safely tucked into my freezer ready for soup beans in the future.

What a wonderful Christmas this was. Along with many others this year, we had a white Christmas. The snow began falling on Christmas eve. It snowed all day, then really fell early Christmas morning, cancelling church services. While we missed being with our church family, the day of Sabbath rest was such a blessing. In a little book I have of 199 Reasons To Be Thankful I read this on Sunday: In this crazy workaholic world we live in, rest is tough to come by. We run full steam ahead all day long and then struggle to sleep when we finally tumble into bed. God ordained rest. It’s one of His greatet gifts to us, and one we should be very thankful for!

So, when your world looks like this, what do you do?

had our own Bible studies, we played several games of Take Two (a shorter version of Scrabble, and a game of Sorry. We had a lunch of leftover Christmas dinner using the Christmas dishes and linens. We napped, journaled, played more games, then had a lovely dessert in the evening. It was a day of rest, and, it was truly a blessing to be able to be at home without responsibilities and things to be getting ready for – as we have been doing for several weeks.

Here’s the dessert I made for Christmas dinner and then we also had on Sunday. It is heavenly. If you’ve ever had Chocolate Molten Cakes at a restaurant you know how decadent they are, but you would choke if you knew how fattening each one is! However, this recipe for Hot Chocolate Fudge Cakes taste every bit as good (maybe better!) than those high fat and calorie desserts with only 1/3 the calories and less than half the fat content! The great thing is that you can make them up two days in advance, put them in the fridge, then bake them when you need them. You serve them hot with a scoop of ice cream – really necessary to off-set the chocolate. I made these for Christmas dinner just to have a new dessert. I will be making these again!

Did you have snowy weather too? What did you bake up for the holidays and your winter weather?

With love,