Terribly Interesting

So, I don't usually blog about chain restaurants, but I love the Mediterranean pizza and the Greek Salad at Newk's Cafe. I didn't want you to miss out on it. There isn't anything special about the atmosphere, but they have delicious fresh veggies. Here are the ingredients to our favorite items. Mediterranean grilled chicken breast, mozzarella, roma tomatoes, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, diced red onions, pepperoncini peppers, olive oil and feta cheese Greek romaine, feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, cucumbers, pepperoncini peppers and sliced red onion tossed with Newk’s Greek dressing We cut the onion. It's fantastic. http://www.newkscafe.com/

  Sometimes I think there should be a top secret version of this blog. I wish I could tell you all of the things we get to see at our house. There is heartbreak and there are miracles. I am more thankful for the kindness of Christ and how He ministers to us than I could ever convey to you. Just in case you have forgotten, God is good. He is good and He loves you. It seems so silly to me to be putting so much thought into what goes into the kitchen and dining room. I hope that people know how much thought went into making a place of rest for them. I want people to be assured that God has prepared a place for them. A few weeks back, I took my neighbor a container of homemade soup and a photograph I had taken so she could have some art in her house. She told me that we were the kindest people she had ever known. I cried. It was soup. I was grieved that simple love had been withheld from her much of her life. As people come in to our home, I want them all to feel loved no matter...

I read this article that was featured on Tim Challies yesterday and I wanted to share it. This is a genuine issue in the church today. We have seen it over and over in the lives of the Saints and have experienced it ourselves. It is okay to walk away if you are being abused in any way. I am grateful for this post. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2012/04/24/when-you-should-not-submit/

Do not get distracted from the thing I have called you to do. Always be ready and available to love when I come your way in the face of another. There is no need to dress things up with churchy words or to call what your doing a ministry. Just love people right where you are. Don't love others by throwing Christian things at them. Love them with your presence. Love them with your nearness. Don't let the moment to have a deep heart connection form with another human being pass you by. Don't miss Me in the face of another. "For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison and you came Me." Matthew 25:35-36 For more on this segment, see this post .

I liked it. Let me tell you why. Bob Goff's words in this book are like a pair of old jeans that you just feel like you belong in. They feel like home. They feel like the Jesus you want to know more instead of the one perpetuated to us by the establishment. Love Does is a rowdy, exhilarating breath of fresh air that will catch you off guard and make you question if you've been doing it right this whole time. You might want to pick up a copy to see if there are things that would be more worth your time than the sterile way you have been going about this Christian life. Dive in. I read several of the stories in this book to my husband as we were driving. I knew that the simple, witty, hilarious style Bob uses to speak to us in the book would wildly appeal to him. It did. Sometimes, you get so engrossed in his stories that you forget that you are learning a lesson. Brilliance, I tell you. We follow Bob around as the most amazing things happen to him. I want to tell you...

I always see these with barbecue sauce slathered on them. Listen, Texans, quit putting barbecue sauce on everything. Keep it on the meat. Let us be creative with the rest of our cooking repertoire. 

  We had a group of juniors come to volunteer here from Hill Country Christian School in San Marcos. They worked all day pulling down huge dead trees, scraping paint, top coating chairs, and general sprucing up of the place. We have been eliminating dead trees since we moved in here. Our weeds were 5 foot tall back then. The dead trees are quite a big deal themselves. Some of them are forty feet tall. The place had gone unmanaged for 20 years and it is a constant effort to get these trees down. Eventually, we would love to get a fence instead of overgrown trees along the back of our property.  I have to tell you, my heart breaks every day here. As we love on pastors struggling through hard marriage issues, mental illness, the ramifications of church abuse, seeing addicts struggle, neighbors without food, I find myself asking what the best way is to love on these people. We don't want to handicap anyone any further, but we want to help. One way is to give people things t...

I have been doing Beth Moore's new study on James. One of my favorite exercises that we have done thus far was to divide our lives into quarters and write things we were thankful for in each. I don't know about you, but I have had some pretty tough quarters. The first two almost did me in. That's why I appreciated this exercise so much. It made me dig through the pain to happiness. She even gave us some easy examples to get us started...like braces. I realized that despite some horrible times and situations, God's providence still shown through. He still provided some beautiful moments tucked inside the pain. He rescued me. Why do we act like we are in prison camps in Cambodia? We have every luxury and yet we focus on our lack. Stop and think. What has Christ done in your life that you have failed to be grateful for?

Do not be double minded. Cast away all doubt and fear. You have no part in these things. People often make fun of the Israelites because they seemed so wishy washy in their belief even though they saw powerful miracles and daily provision. Don't laugh. You are much the same. I move mountains in your spiritual and personal life on Monday and by Thursday mid-morning you are wondering why I have forsaken you. Have faith, sweet child. Remember, when I work I do it in a greater way than you could do or conceive and I do it at a time when no one could doubt that I had done it. Put away this need for rushing and the crutch of doubt as a comfort. I am moving. Rest in that. "...He answered their prayers because they trusted in Him." 1 Chronicles 5:20 For more on this segment, see this post .

I saw this book a while back and wondered what it might contain. I get a little weary of experts labeling children as strong-willed. Why would we want to strap our small children with the burden of a title that makes them seem deficient. These character traits we seem to deplore in small children become the tenacity we applaud in adulthood. The difference to me is seeing the beauty in the character that has been entrusted to our children by God. Our job is not to become angry at it, but to help them cultivate their personality to the glory of God. That's one of the reasons that I enjoyed this book. It touts the positive attributes of the spirited personality. We can think we are raising a terror or we can believe that we are raising a strong, passionate adult. The main thing I enjoyed about this book was simply how it pointed out the challenges of this personality type and how to prepare for and direct it. The child that has a spirited temperament is generally more perceptiv...

 Perhaps you noticed that I did a book review on a book entitled Quiet a week ago. This book is about the positive attributes of introversion. Maybe this let our secret out of the bag. My husband and I are introverts. We love quiet to recharge. Most people do not notice this because we love friendliness and Southern hospitality. It is true, however. I always laugh at how God uses people. He takes two introverts and gets them to open a respite and uses them to change the atmosphere around them. Irony. As I was reading the book, I really noticed how God had used the way He formed our brains to do the task He set before us. Who better than two people who love tranquility to set up a quiet place to be alone with Him. Did you know the introverted brain is designed to pick up on things the extroverted brain will never see unless pointed out to them? God designed us to see hurts in people that most people don't see or care about. Isn't that interesting. In the womb, God was causing...

When I first started counseling, I had this idea of being in an office with two wing back chairs facing each other and me "helping" someone else have the life they desired. I'd be well-dressed, of course and they would need me desperately. God has brought me on a much different journey. It took much longer to get me here than it did to educate me on how to counsel. Brokenness and desert surrounded me for a long time. I have learned that it is easier to counsel in a few gracious sentences than in hours of my opinion. God intends us to do this when we look the worst. He wants it when we desperately want to escape the Walmart bathroom, but there is someone at the sink crying. He wants you to offer your heart when you are desperately uncomfortable. I have had more meaningful conversations on my front porch or across the table at a hole in the wall restaurant than I ever could have had in a stuffy office. I'm better for it. The more we are real about our struggles, the ...

The graciousness of Christ abounds to you. How will you take this out to those around you? How will you choose to show grace to someone near to you right now? Our reluctance is a sign that we need to ask Christ to put to death our flesh. There are simple things, simple words, simple sentences that can change the lives of those around you. What if you showed a tiny bit of interest or three sentences of compassion? Perhaps, compassion can even be shown by not saying what your critical spirit wants to say. Don't let the spirit of criticism rob you of the joy of loving and being loved by others.  "...May you be blessed of the LORD for you have had compassion on me." 2 Samuel 12:6 For more information this segment, see this post .

 I was perusing the photos on my phone from the last week and this is what I found. Last Thursday we had a bunch of people over for dinner. One of those being Chad (above). Yasha just loves him. We also had 2 sets of guests Wednesday through Sunday.   Here is my beloved husband mowing our property. We have two acres so this is quite a commitment. There always seems to be something getting into the lawn mower and it has to be repaired. This particular time, Denbigh wanted to mow so bad by the time he was done repairing that he didn't even bother to put the hood back on.  This has nothing to do with our house, but I decided to let Yasha eat pasta on the porch by herself one evening. We were all laughing. When she got up, there was more pasta hanging off her derriere than I had eaten for supper.  Denbigh is a tad bit protective of me when I am pregnant. He has been letting me stain the buffet little by little. I fo course am wearing my intense, heavy...