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Weeklong Blessings

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The Lord was so good to allow us to make a trip to the Smoky Mt. Natl. Parkway on Monday. The colors are just beginning to turn to a yellowish shade. The day was a bit overcast and as we climbed the mountain it got down to 37 degrees at about 4:00.

It drizzled for a bit, then we rounded a curve, looked to our left and saw this…

I pointed and shouted, “God keeps His promises!”
How gracious of the Lord to allow me to see this rainbow before I teach the story this Sunday!

Around another corner the sun was peeking through the clouds onto one section of the mountains. The sun is always shining somewhere, isn’t it?


I love a tunnel in the mountains…so beautiful!


We got to spend Tuesday at Dollywood with some dear friends.
We even had a tail-gate lunch with them! We were envied by passersby and rightly so! It was a lovely day, good fellowship and a great lunch!

I love Dollywood in the fall. Harvest decorations are everywhere.

The blessings at the end of the week were the Sunday roast that I salvaged! If you read my post on Monday you’ll remember that the Sunday roast beef was tough as shoe leather. My husband sliced it into little pieces for me yesterday morning, then I put it in the crock pot with a little water and some homemade barbecue sauce. I put the crock pot on low for six hours. That meat turned into soft, warm, squishy barbecue that melted in our mouths! Thank you, Lord!

We topped our sandwich with a little cole slaw (the southern way to eat barbecue).

I served it with potato salad that Alli had made and some buttered corn. Mmmmm!

On our way home from Pigeon Forge we stopped in Cosby, TN at an apple farm where I bought apples, pumpkins, and molasses. At my husband’s request I made these Molasses cookies for dessert…

These cookies are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. They are a perfect autumn cookie! Since October is National Cookie Month I am making a different cookie each week. I give most away, but we will eat a little bite of something sweet after supper.


As I sit and recount the blessings from this week I remember that there were a couple of hard things that were peppered into our week too, but through it all, God was faithful. He always sends little reminders of His love (the rainbow), grace blessings to encourage (time away to refresh, a warm cookie and a cup of coffee), and His presence to convict and guide us. He is such a wonderful God and I’m thankful He is my heavenly Father!

What blessings have you experienced this week that you can praise God for? I’d love to hear about them!

See you in church.

With love,

Christian Life

Waiting For the Rain

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When you teach children in church, it’s necessary to digest the Bible passage into small tiny pieces so you can have the details entrenched in your heart. How familiar the story of Noah is to most of us. We think of the animals that came 2 by 2, the arc being built, and the rain that fell for forty days, and the rainbow in the sky, but I’m telling you, that the Lord has allowed me to see some things in this known story as I been studying it to teach to my Sunday school class. They are precious truths that I needed to learn!

This week my Sunday school class will learn about God shutting the door on the arc and then the rains coming. As I studied the passage, I read in Genesis 7:10 “And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.” Think about it – all the animals were in the arc. Noah and his family were safe in the arc, and not one other person would heed Noah’s warnings that God was going to send a flood. Now the door is shut, and as I pictured the event I could see the whole Noah family looking upward to the windows of the arc. Was it raining yet? No. Perhaps they even had a hard time looking upward because the sunshine was beaming into their eyes! The next day, perhaps they thought this was the day the flood would begin and God’s promise would be fulfilled. No. The next day the sun continued to shine. Day four, day five, and day six all passed with no rain. Were they wondering when this would happen? I wonder if there marks on the wall of the arc for every day they waited for the rain? Noah’s family was flesh, and I think they had to be wondering when this was going to happen.

Finally, on day seven – drip, tap, splash…the water began to come from the sky. The clouds caused a darkness to fall over the arc, then the darkness was divided by a flash of lightening piercing through the sky. They would write in their journals, “Today, on day seven the floods began. God has kept His promise to send judgment.”

How often I am looking for a promise of God to be fulfilled in my life…in my timetable. I sit in my arc waiting for that promise to rain down, and I begin to question – “Am I misapplying this promise? Is God going to do this now?” But there are no “rain clouds in sight” and I grow impatient.

The Lord reminded me through Noah and his family, however, that He will keep His promise. It will rain, and it will be the perfect time. His promise is sure and He cannot go back on it. So, today, I choose, whether I “hear the flood waters” coming or it’s still clear skies, to rest safely in my arc (the Lord Jesus).

Whatever you’re praying for, it may not be answered until “day seven,” but you can rest assured that God is in the heavens and he will do whatsoever He will please. Psalm 115:3 It will be the perfect time, and He will be glorified in it. Just as He was seen in the flood, it will be evident that His hand has moved in your situation too! Continue to trust Him.

Safe in the arc,

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Noteworthy Wednesday

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Yesterday’s post was about a mother’s guilt for not being everything she could have been. What do you struggle with the most as a mom? Is it anger? Fear of the future? Lack of knowing how to parent or discipline?

Perhaps your days of parenting a young child are over, are there other issues you’re facing now that are difficult?

Your responses will help me to know what issues could be addressed in the future.

Please share on this Noteworthy Wednesday.

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A Mother’s Middle Name – GUILT

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Recently I had a friend ask me what I thought about the statement, “Every mother’s middle name is ‘guilt.'” She said she’d really like my thoughts on that. I considered it for a couple of days – even mentioned it to a couple of women and was interested in their responses. “Oh, boy, isn’t that the truth!” was pretty much what I heard from others.

Why is it that those of us that are mothers deal with guilt? As our children grow up and we look back on their training years in our home, we feel inadequate. We wish we had done more. We know ourselves and remember that we got angry too quickly sometimes. We were often too busy to play. We fear we were too hard, or not strict enough. We compare ourselves to “Leave it to Beaver” mothers and feel like we’ve missed the mark, though we gave it 110% for 20+ years of our lives.
But according to the Word of God, what should our response be when we look over our shoulder at motherhood days gone-by? We must view it the same way we do any other area of our lives – we must realize that all of our sinful responses are under the blood of Christ. It was covered at Calvary.

If I’m thinking on what is true and real, then I know that I did the best at the time, though it was tainted with my sinful nature. There is nothing that I can do now to change the past.

I will also remind myself that I serve a sovereign God who is still able to move in the heart of my child(ren), spite my failures and mistakes. He can take my feeble attempts at parenting and be glorified in the lives of my children. That is nothing short of a miracle, and it is all of His grace!
Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and it is he who would try to make me wallow in the mire of guilt. My precious Savior would not do that to His child. Guilt is Satan’s tool to defeat me, and I must fight it using God’s tool – His Word.
So Moms, take heart – serve the Lord in your home to the best of your ability and in His strength, and then let go of it. Believe the truth about your mothering skills, which is, Heb. 13:20,21 “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Because of grace,
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What’s Cookin’ in the Parsonage?

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Alli got to come home from college again this weekend (this was the planned visit, last weekend was a little surprise and grace blessing). I try to make foods when she comes home that she doesn’t get at school. So for Sunday dinner I got a beef roast and cooked it my traditional way like I posted here. I realized Saturday night that I didn’t have any Lipton Onion Soup, so I went on-line and looked for a substitution for it. I found this recipe and used it instead. It was very good. I’m so glad to have a recipe for this now, and not have to worry with keeping the dry soup in my pantry! We also had red skinned mashed potatoes, and carrots (they were cooked with the roast). I also served a green salad.

I have to tell you, though, that the roast was tough! Ugh! Not only was it expensive, but also a huge disappointment. I cooked it slow and low, but evidently I got a not so good piece of meat! I’m just glad I didn’t have guests! I sure hate it when the main dish is a flop! Since you shouldn’t cry over spilled milk, I guess I can’t pout over tough meat!

Nothing tastes as good as food cooked at home – (even if it’s less than perfect), and I love it when my girls make requests for their favorite things when they are here. Food makes connections; it brings a family together, and is so worth the trouble it takes to make a meal in your own kitchen on a regular basis.

Alli’s boy/friend joined us on Saturday for a few hours of bike riding on the bike path in the town next to us. He got here early in the morning, so I figured I’d better have something for breakfast when he arrived. I tried a new recipe – Snickerdoodle muffins. We LOVE snickerdoodle cookies, so when I saw this recipe, I knew it was something we’d enjoy.

This muffin isn’t really pretty, but it was hard to get a good picture because all that cinnamon and sugar on top wanted to fall off, but they were yummy!

Snickerdoodle Muffins
2 c. flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. cream of tartar
.3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Topping
1 c. sugar – I used 3/4 Cup
2 T. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Either butter a 12-cup muffin tin or
use cupcake papers. (I ended up with 16 muffins)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In another bowl,
combine the melted butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Stir until
combined. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix lightly
with a fork.

Fill the muffin cups with batter. Top each muffin with the
cinnamon/sugar mixture. It can be applied heavily.
Bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

It was a beautiful fall weekend here in East Tennessee and cooking in this kind of weather is just fun! What’s been cooking in your kitchen? Have you had a flop recently like I had yesterday?

With cups full of love,