Happy Monday, Y’all!  I’m back home from vacation!  These past couple of weekends have been full of blessings!  From attending a Legacy Breakfast at BJU with our Alli, to then watching her receive her Bachelor of Science Degree the next weekend, my cup has been full and overflowing!

For our family, celebrations are connected with good food!  For both events, this held true!  Since both of those events happened in Greenville where our other daughter, Whitney and her husband live, she was sweet enough to host the Sunday dinner the first weekend, and then the graduation party the next.  Whitney loves to cook, and it’s obvious when you eat anything she makes!  She loves to try new recipes – even on guests (wonder where she learned that?!).  She made a Pork Tenderloin in the crock pot for a Sunday after church dinner.  The recipe is a keeper.  The meat was tender, and the sauce it was cooked in made it flavorful and worthy of seconds!

Simply called Slow Cooker Pork Loin, Whitney found this on My Blessed Life’s blog.  What could be easier than pouring a six-ingredient sauce over top of a pork loin and turning on the crock pot?  Um, not much!  Whitney served this with mashed potatoes, green beans and biscuits.  Here’s the recipe:

Slow Cooker Pork Loin

Our lovely hostess!

For the graduation party, we decided on Mexican – it’s our favorite!  I did chicken fajitas and Whitney did a Corn Casserole and a layered fruit salad.  Both were outstanding.  Take a look at this fruit dish!

Honey-Yogurt Fruit Salad Dressing

Corn Casserole

1 (15 1/4-ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained

In a large bowl, stir together the 2 cans of corn, corn muffin mix, sour cream, and melted butter. Pour into a greased 9 by 13-inch casserole dish. Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and top with Cheddar. Return to oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Let stand for at least 5 minutes and then serve warm.


Here’s a peek at some of the party attenders and the Pinterest inspired decorations. . .

Alli, Her future mother-in-law and Andrew, her fiance’.

Cute little straw holder that matched perfectly (found at the Dollar Store!)

What things have you been celebrating this spring?  Any great recipes connected to your parties?

Recently, I have been really challenged about what it means to be a Christian. I have always thought a Christian was someone who went to church, had devotions, and kept up a decent testimony before others. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I’m even attending a Christian university! How much more “Christian” can I get? But recently, God has really been showing me what it means to be a true Christian. And I’ll tell you this – it is far more extreme than I ever imagined it to be.
Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Now it is true that going to church and having devotions is part of following Jesus, but there is so much more than that. Jesus has called us as Christians to live a life that is set-apart for Him. He wants us to reject the things of this world and follow solely after Him.

Becoming set-apart for Jesus first starts with dedicating ourselves to Him. We must declare that we are His alone. Then, we must silence our selfish side. This is where it gets hard. When we decide to die to ourselves we are immediately entering into a continual battle with our flesh. But through Scripture reading and prayer, you can have victory over your selfishness. Lastly, we must come away with Him. To come away with Jesus means to completely turn aside from the pleasures and entertainments of this world so we can be unstained and spotless for our King. And to me, this is where living the Christian life gets extreme. Rejecting the pleasures of this world means not listening to the world’s music, not watching the world’s movies, not wearing the world’s clothes. It means not having all the toys and fun entertainment the world offers. It means spending more time in prayer than I do reading the latest fashion magazine. It means taking time to serve the poor and needy instead of going shopping with my friends. Jesus didn’t participate in the world’s activities when He was on earth; he was about His Father’s business. It should be the same for me, a Christian.

—Allison Cunningham

How about you – are you set apart for Him?

With love,

Mothering For the Lord
I have a heart for moms; they’re one of my own kind.  Standing on this side of motherhood gives me a bright, new perspective!  My side of the fence is filled with sweet words of appreciation from my grown daughters.  Memories of their childhood are spoken from them with fondness and laughter.  I’m seeing the “green side” of parenting. It’s the side where the fruit is ripening.  It’s wonderfully sweet!

I remember when I was on the other side of that mothering fence, though.  My husband worked two part-time jobs while pastoring our new church, and I was often the Lone Ranger parent.  I did school all day, managed the bickering between sisters, along with the pouting attitudes and grumbling spirits.  Green grass was often a dream in the distant future.  I was standing on the dirt where I was trying to sow.

Then I would come across a verse in my daily Bible reading that would so encourage my heart and help me to keep my perspective.  It would be a verse like this one that I read this week. It would be an unlikely verse that the Lord would use to snap me back to remembering my purpose in motherhood.

This is not a passage on parenting, but it was a command from King Jehoshaphat to the judges.  He was reminding these men that their work was to be done for the Lord – not for any man under their jurisdiction.  Do you know what the work of a judge was? The judges of these courts were to:

It sounds like they were doing the work mothers do!  Look at the similarities...

If you’ve been a mother for more than a day, and you love the Lord, you’ve at least done #1.  This is a great reminder that your mothering, as King Jehoshaphat said to the judges, is to be done for the Lord. Do all you do as a mom for the Lord.  Make that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, clean up the spilled milk, teach that math lesson, discipline, sing, pray for your child – all as unto the Lord. Sometimes when you’re getting weary and your patience is growing thin, you may literally need to say out loud, “Lord, I’m doing this for you.” 

You won’t need to be concerned with what others think about your mothering skills, or whether or not your children still like you. You also won’t have a bad attitude about your responsibilities as a mom if you’re doing it all not for man, but for the Lord!

Let me address those of you that may not be moms. This verse applies to each of us.  If you’re going in to a job today, taking college classes, or staying home in the retirement years of your life, keep the thought in mind that everything we do is not for man, but for the Lord.  There is eternity in front of each of us.  If we’re living with this attitude that Jehoshaphat encouraged, we will have crowns to cast at our Savior’s feet. The rewards will also be for the Lord.

With love,

The hissing of the oxygen concentrator is steady, and lulls my mother-in-law to sleep.  I slip in and pull the sheet over her shoulders and turn off the light.  Then lying down in my bed, the monitor in both our rooms in the “on” position, I hear the machine’s hissing, and also her breathing and frequent cough.  I whisper a prayer for her comfort and a good night’s rest for her.  These are the sounds of Christmas in the parsonage this year.

Some say, “What a terrible time to have a loved-one so sick, here at Christmas.”  I’ll admit that Christmas in the parsonage is usually filled with a different kind of activity – the celebratory kind.  It would include parties, a hot oven putting out all kinds of confectioneries, and a calendar crammed more full than a New York subway at rush hour.

I also admit that this year will be a different sort of Christmas in the parsonage.  Already it hasn’t been the normal routine of Christmas movies, cantatas, drives through the country to see the lights, or even baking sugar cookies with colored sprinkles.  Instead it’s been about giving our time to my mother-in-law, who has little time left. It’s not been about what I want for Christmas, but about what she needs. Instead of harried schedules, we find ourselves taking time to sit and chat, to ask questions of her, for our own memory’s sake.  “Remind me again how you and Dad met.”  “Tell me about the day you trusted Christ as your Savior.”  We talk about heaven, the things we know from Scripture, and the things we imagine will be waiting for us there.  We sing, we read, we laugh, we cry.

It is for all this and all other kinds of suffering that our Savior came.  He was born a babe in a manger in order to give us hope for eternity – for what lies ahead that we cannot see.  We know that heaven’s shore is just beyond, and for that we rejoice.  This is why we have Christmas.  This is why Jesus died – to redeem us and give us a relationship with God.  He makes sense of all the suffering in our lives.

So, really, perhaps Christmas is the best time to suffer.  We have all around us the reminder that Christ came to prevent our eternal suffering, and to keep our current suffering in perspective.

Looking into my mother-in-law’s room and watching her sleep, I remind myself that this (suffering) is why He came.  It will be worth it all when she sees Jesus.  And just think, she could see Him very soon!  Yes, this is why He came.  Merry Christmas, ( this week I’ll add, Happy Mother’s Day) Mom C.

From my parsonage windows,

Isn’t it startling to go grocery shopping and watch the amount add up as you move from aisle to aisle?  I’m leaning heavily on my coupon book to help reduce the amount I have to pay at the checkout.

Sometimes, however, I have to move to other tactics, like buying generic items instead of popular name brands.  It doesn’t make that much difference, does it?  A can of diced tomatoes is a can of diced tomatoes, no matter how it’s wrapped.  The generic will do just as well.  It will serve the purpose in the recipe.

There are some things, however, where I just have to buy the name brand because the quality is so much better – paper products is one thing.   I can’t stand using a paper product that disintegrates when it’s used!

We’ve all probably seen the advertisements for products like Brawny that claim to be tough – or Bounty – “The quicker picker-upper!”  These name brands make claims that make their product different.  They stand head and shoulders above the generic!  They are really worth the extra cost.

What type of Christianity do you and I have?  Is it generic because there’s really nothing special about it?  It serves its purpose – I mean we’re on our way to heaven after all.  The way we live our lives doesn’t set our Christianity apart from anyone else.  We look like they look, talk like they talk, worry like they worry, live for the present like they live for the present.  Is our prayer life is generic too?  We pray when it’s necessary – at mealtime we bow our head and say the same little ditty we’ve been saying since who knows when.  If there’s a tragedy going on, we pray about that,but for the most part, we handle the day-to-day struggles ourselves.  What “brand” is our church membership?  Is it generic too?  We go when it’s convenient, when nothing else conflicts with the service times.  We aren’t serving in any way – that would take too much commitment.  No, being a member is enough.

The generic products are less expensive and accomplish nearly the same thing.  I find it tempting to pull the generic off the shelf of my Christian life because it doesn’t cost as much either.  But, oh, the blessings that come from getting the name brand product that does what it claims!  Even more so, there are many blessings that come from having more than just generic brand in my walk with the Lord, in prayer with Him, and in church membership and service!  It’s rich, sweet and full of blessings!

Don’t skimp when it comes to your walk with God; generic Christianity disintegrates faster than a wimpy paper towel!

With love,