Category: Overcoming -

Short and sweet!

9/25/2015

Because my kitchen is so tiny, has no pantry, and limited cupboard space, Kyle and I have gotten creative about storage !!

This is only half of the apples we were given!

Wow, has it been over a month since last I wrote? Yeesh, it doesn't feel like it!! Time has been FLYING. Kyle has started going to a men's Bible study at church that is really challenging him, and working a LOT of extra shifts at his 3 jobs. Thats been great for the ol' Dave Ramsey envelope system, but because all the schedules are rotational we don't have any kind of set 'weekend' per se. I have a new Nannying job starting in January, I'll be starting an online course to get a license in Nutritional Therapy, and we've been traveling all over the place! Its been great but when we do have a day with nothing on the docket and no one coming over or expecting us, we jealously treasure it!
Well, I know I promised a blog post about herbs and herbalism and my personal thoughts, interests and experiences with it. BUT A friend gave us 2 bushels of windfall apples, and so the last 2 days I have been learning how to can, peeling, coring, cooking, and canning APPLESAUCE! My Amish friend told me you can mix up Apple Pie filling and can it also, so I'm saving the nicer, less bruised (or wormy or mildew-peeled) apples for that. I also want to dehydrate some. I have an old cookbook that my mom used to have a copy of called 'the vegetarian's epicure' or something like that. She used to make German Apple Pancake out of that book and I honestly like it better than apple pie! So i may be making that for tomorrow's breakfast... but my point was that the cookbook has the easiest, tastiest Scone recipe. It involves buttermilk, which I haven't really used until 2 years ago and I LOVE cooking with it! It makes breads, pancakes, biscutes and scones so much more wonderful! Last time I made the scones I chopped some dehydrated apples my Grandpa gave me and put them with cinnamon and some sugar and made my own rendition of apple-cinnamon scones. They were a huge hit with my husband! I also like grating orange peel and adding dried onion to the batter. Ahh... Fall food is the BEST! I'm experimenting tonight by Nourishing-traditions-ifying my Vegetarian Epicure recipe. I mixed the buttermilk, butter and eggs and used spelt and buckwheat flour instead of white flour and am letting it soak overnight. Soaking grains in milk products overnight starts a lacto-fermentation process (like sourdough) that breaks down the parts of the grains that are difficult to digest or that leach vitamins and nutrients out of your body. I'm noticing a huge difference when Kyle and I eat LOW gluten or NO gluten, but also soaking grains helps a lot too. We feel less bloated or just 'blah.' My friend wants us to go completely gluten free, but that just doesn't sound appealing to my husband or I. Low gluten we can do. Zilch gluten? Meh. We aren't intolerant, its just not the easiest thing for your body to assimilate into the good stuff. Which, when you are trying to repair your gut (like in Kyle's case) or recover from Adrenal fatigue (like both Kyle and I) then focusing on easy-to-digest stuff is best.

Flower herbs and mugs for the herbal teas I've been brewing. Not only are these jars excellent storage, but they look very pretty and give my kitchen an Old World look that I love!

So all that to say: My head is spinning with different ideas and recipe's to experiment with and try and share with you! But I'm having a hard time collecting my thoughts on herbs, other than I confess I've snuck some herbal powders into my applesauce this time, and am using lots of fresh ginger in it too! I'm finding its a REALLY fun way to hide herbs in food so get that extra kick of vitamins, minerals and good stuff!
And I need to go to bed. I've got bone broth cooking overnight and apples in the crock pots again (I now own 2 crockpots. Yay!) and tomorrow I'm making the scones, chicken soup out of the bone broth, tomato soup, and I'm going to make some chocolate-chip cookies out of Almond flour. Well... maybe it will be almond flour. I picked up some raw chestnuts at the Farmer's Market last Saturday because they sounded interesting, so I might pulverize them in the Nutribullit and use them instead of going out and buying some expensive almond flour....
Well in any event I'll letcha know how it turns out. I'll try to remember to post the recipe tomorrow. The lady who taught me to can this afternoon gave it to me and I don't think she'd mind if I shared it with you!

This is why I am not writing anything that people may think is educational. I need to keep this post very clearly out of the educational realm and firmly in the 'ramblings and update' category of life My brain is whirring with too many ideas! I'm not focused enough to educate you right now... sorry!

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You've gone Crunchy?!

8/21/2015

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Our strawberries like their new home! As long as I keep them watered every few days, the raised bed of nothing but Straw seems to work really well!

we have a TON of gorgeous Green tomatoes. I have a feeling they will ALL turn red at the SAME TIME. Which means I'm probably going to have to learn how to can this Fall...

Kyle and I were at my Alma Mater's library yesterday and I ran into an old friend. Dan and my husband haven't had too many opportunities to hang out, but each time we interact we always walk away chuckling because of his quirky sense of humor. Despite being abused and misused by the Christian community he and his wife were part of, they're marching forward in Forgiveness and Grace. They are even considering returning to the very community that bludgeoned them with Legalism so that he can finish schooling and be better prepared for ministry! AAAAnd they are expecting their second baby! We had a very fun time catching up (we only run into each other about twice a year). During the course of our conversation Dan bemoaned the fact that his wife is becoming 'crunchy.'
"Crunchy?" I asked, perplexed.
"Yeah. You know. Crunchy-granola, organic, earth-mother, healthy food NUTS." he responded. I grinned, because it was obvious he was looking to us for some sympathy. Despite being in a library, I busted out laughing when the worst thing Dan could tell me his wife was doing to him was insisting they use a Midwife and Doula for baby #2!
"Hey, I was skeptical at first, but you may want to try it. Its only improved MY quality of life, and the food is great! - for the most part!" Kyle chimed in. Dan looked at me and his eyes widened.
"Dear lord... you've gone crunchy too!" he gasped. And me, in my 'stir the pot' mentality, said,
"Sure if you want to put it THAT way. I need to catch up with your wife on Facebook so we can share crunchy notes!" and giggled at my friend's involuntary shudder. He placed his big hand on Kyle's shoulder and said,
"You have my sympathies brother. We could start a support group? Maybe meet at McDonalds?"
"No, no I actually am enjoying the journey." was my husbands cheerful response.
Dan shook his head and muttered something about brainwashing.

I can't blame him though because I was the same way. If we hadn't had some health scares I'd be right on board with Dan and giving him the sympathy he was looking for. I turned my nose up at the organic section at Kroger and dismissed it as something for 'rich people who hate themselves.' To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out ways to avoid the Organic section of Kroger simply because its so cotton-picking expensive! (That's part of the reason why we have a vegetable garden!)
Ok so before I get side-tracked on several other rants I could easily get sucked into about the Food Industry and people not wanting to educate themselves, I'll finish my blog 'series' on why were are getting green, gross and apparently crunchy. And for those of you who were curious, I haven't ordered any of the weird things I mentioned several posts ago (like seaweed and mushrooms) YET because #1. I wanted to order some Essential Oils from that company and when flammable liquids are part of the package, shipping jacks WAY up and #2. I'm in this 'eeny meeny minee moe' phase in learning how to grocery shop healthy. Which thing do I stock up on this paycheck? Soup bones or arrowroot powder? They both will last a while but which will I use first? And while I'm stocking up how do I make sure to not spend ALL our grocery money so that we have some cash leftover for the weekly things we buy? Gu-uh. I know if it were easy then everyone would be doing it. But living a Nourishing Traditions lifestyle AND a Dave Ramsey lifestyle at the same time is C.H.A.L.L.E.N.G.I.N.G!!!!
I DO however have a glass bowl on my counter top with Sourdough bread Starter fermenting. I am VERY excited about it.

Did I say I was going to avoid a rant? Hm. I think I just got sucked into a budgeting rant. Sorry! Ok back to our New Food Reasonings :

Home grown Green Peppers are the BEST!

So two things I need to note, because i realize that MOST of the guidelines she gave were very counter intuitive and go directly against what we read on labels at the store or in the news or in health books.
First, you need to know that by incorporating the healthy fats and oils into our diet, Kyle and i have actually LOST WEIGHT just by the diet change (an added bonus is that our workouts go much better, longer and our muscles don't feel as sore or tired at the end of it) This seems so illogical until you think about it for a minute: Why do our bodies need food? We eat food for two reasons.
1. Food is essential for energy, which we need to live
2. Food tastes good and our tongue is a powerful master!

Lets look at point one first. How does our body get energy from food? From digestion! you say. Yes, but which aspects of the food do our bodies digest? Our digestive system is designed to break down the food and separate the good stuff - vitamins and minerals, sugars, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins - from the bad stuff - toxins, useless carbs and fibers. If it gets too much of what it doesn't need at that time - such as fats, sugars, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, then it stores them up. Vitamins and minerals go into the immune system and make it stronger for when illness attacks and the sugars, fats and carbohydrates get stored in body fat.
Now modern diets say that we must avoid ALL fatty things and ALL carbohydrates and ALL real sugars and replace them with foods labeled 'diet.' Diet coke, diet margarine, diet 'sugar's such as sweet-and-low and equal. And we must work out. Often, regularly, and cheerfully.
However,
1. simple carbs have very very low nutritional value, OR the nutritional value is staked onto one side. Your body gets too much of one thing it needs and not enough of another. So its depleted in one area and stores up too much in another area. Hence too many bagels with cream cheese = a larger pants size. In addition, your body cannot extract the nutrients from carbs if it doesn't have enough of the right vitamins already stored up. If it can't digest it now, it either throws it away or stores it for later.
2. Your body NEEDS good fats - which contain high amounts of proteins and vitamins - to regenerate cells. If you omit proteins and healthy fats out of your diet, you have nothing left to rebuild and repair those muscles you are working so hard at the gym! (Thus you may be skinny but you cells can't repair or regenerate, which leaves you open to injury or chronic illness at the worst and at the best very wrinkly skin and stretch marks!)
On the opposite side of this point is that fat and sugar substitutes have either been damaged on a molecular level in the extraction process, AND in the case of margarine have had their cells and molecules changed so many times and had so many additives mixed in (margarine's natural color is off-grey and tastes foul so they add dyes and flavorings to it) that chemically it closely resembles plastic.
3. Your body CANNOT PROCESS ASPARTAME. Yes it is true sugar is not healthy for you. It is true it increases pant and dress sizes, and it is true if you use the diet sugars you will - for a while - see your weight go down. The reason why you see your weight drop temporarily is because your body doesn't know what to do with the fake sugars. It has no nutritional value whatsoever. It does not give you energy at all like sugar does. So what does your body do with it? It stores it away in fat. Because it thinks, 'well, whatever this is I can't use it now. Maybe it'll come in handy for later.' But whenever 'later' comes, the body goes to its stores and supplies and says, "Well I know what THIS fat molecule does. I'll take THAT one. This equal stuff looks pretty, all blue and sparkly on my Fat Supply Shelves, but I still don't know what to do with it! Maybe one day..." and leaves it there. Well our bodies need to do 'spring cleaning' like we do with our houses. Thats why working out is helpful, it stimulates using up stored fats and cleaning off the 'fat supply shelves' and giving them a good dusting. BUT, your body can't do that with aspartame or sugar-substitutes. So they just stay there. What happens when something stays on your shelf at home? Yes it collects dust! What does dust look like in your body? TOXINS. What do toxins do? CAUSE PROBLEMS. They cause diseases!

Now that we've got all THAT cleared up, believe me when I say that incorporating natural, healthy fats and sugars into your diet is the way to go!

I said there were two things to note, right? The first was that by eating counter-intuitively - or counter-modern-culturally by incorporating fats, we're actually losing weight.
The second thing to note is this: I know lots and lots of people who have had to change their diets for health reasons, and then get very snobby about food around people. They are kind of condescending or just plain rude. We don't want to be like that. Yes we still eat out with friends, and yes we still go to friends' houses for food. And no we don't expect them to cook for us according to our guidelines.
Here's what I very strongly believe: God cares about how we eat. He dedicated a lot of Mosaic law to food guidelines and Jesus taught a lot while eating or feeding people. However Peter had a vision whose main message was that he needed to stop being a food snob. (Acts 10:9-16)

I don't want to become a Food Snob. Yes I am VERY passionate about diet right now. I am very particular about how I grocery shop right now. And if you come to our house for dinner, you'll probably eat something thats cooked in a way you haven't eaten it before or you'll have something you've just never had before - like dandelion greens in the salad. However I want to respect the fact that not everyone feels convicted to get off the Standard American Diet, and not everyone cooks according to our guidelines. So we eat whats put in front of us at other people's houses, we say thank you for deserts that people give us, and we go to restaurants and enjoy the chips and salsa appetizer that people buy us.

But we HAVE noticed whenever we do 'cheat' our tummies are rumbling all evening and its harder for us to get to sleep. So if you do invite us over and I don't eat a lot, its not because your cooking isn't scrumdelicious. Its just because I know if I pig out as much as I want to I will PAY for it later!!

Join me next time to talk about Herbs and Essential Oils!!!

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Green and gross

8/14/2015

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Alright well I may not make my 3 posts a week goal yet, but thats ok. At least I've gotten 2 posts in this week! Which is more than I've been getting in on a bi-weekly basis for a while!
In other news we haven't bought any mushrooms or seaweed yet. Although I did accidentally make butter twice when trying to make whipped cream with our raw milk. How does one accidentally make butter, you ask? Well, when you don't have a hand mixer and you decide to just shake your cream in a Tupperware container because thats 'essentially the same thing as whisking it' - I shook it for too long and hey presto butter! Kyle said the expression on my face was hilarious. The second time I did it, I was trying to make whipped cream in my food processor because I was cooking other things and didn't want to just stand there holding the hand mixer to make whipped cream. Yeah I beat it too long then, too. I will say that fresh buttermilk is AMAZING though!
Ok so why are we getting all green and gross. Well, I'll tell ya. Basically Kyle and I have been severely vitamin and mineral depleted for a while now, and we're falling apart and we're only 28!! How did we get this way? The short answer is a lifetime on a standard American diet. A sometimes healthier-than-usual standard American diet, but pretty standard nonetheless.
Both our mama's tried to feed us descent food on strict budgets without the benefits of all the awesome new research and resources that are coming out. The result of which is that there were a lot of carbs and 'dead foods,' - foods that had all the nutrients zapped out of them through processing and preserving. Nutrient-dense food doesn't have to be expensive (although it certainly can be!) but if you know what to look for you can still have a highly nutrient dense meal on a budget. The problem is you do have to make some front-end investments. You end up spending the same amount of money in the long run, but you have to plan and budget and pray and do without. Neither of our mom's knew what to look for, where to get it or how to pay for it front-end. I will say my mom knew a bit more than Kyle's mom, because we did go through regular health/diet episodes in my family while growing up. (There was the Great Chili Year in which we ate nothing but homemade chili, cornbread, and if we were really feeling froggy had some popcorn for desert! Yeah I hung out at friend's house a LOT that year just to get some variety in my diet! I'm still not over it. I don't care how healthy beans are for you I refuse to cook them. I'll make Indian lentils and I do love using garbanzo beans but THAT IS IT!)
When I was in college I experienced that lovely epidemic that went around a few years ago: Swine Flu. Upon reflection, the illness itself wasn't all that horrible. It was the effects it had on my body long-term that were devastating! My health was just done after that. I got sick almost every other month; and not just the common cold either. I had ear, eye, and respiratory infections - and odd strains of those as well! It took the doctor's about a month to figure out what was wrong with my eye and how to fix it. Even when the infections stopped coming so frequently, I still was out whenever any kind of flu or cold came through town. I had no clue how to recuperate from illnesses, nor what kind of effects multiple rounds of antibiotics does on the infrastructure of one's body chemistry. Even though I worked out and was in GREAT shape, I was very susceptible to muscle injuries and was constantly spraining, straining or pulling something.
My then-boyfriend-now-husband took VERY good care of me - as much as he knew how! However he thought it was because I was way too thin (which, to be fair, I was too skinny at the time) so thought I just needed to eat MORE.
He had rarely been sick growing up, and thought it an injustice to society whenever he or those he knew were in any way ill. BUT right after we got married he donated Bone Marrow to a Cancer patient. We didn't know the recipient, it was all anonymous. The three days before the transplant were MISERABLE. Our representative from the donation organization was amazing and walked me through everything, but even she admitted she had never had or heard of a donor being that sick. Neither Kyle or I slept much and were in and out of the ER for those three days trying to figure out where Kyle's horrible migraines and flu-symptoms were coming from. Was it the bone marrow medication? Was he really sick? Could he still do the donation? After the transplant, Kyle was ill for about 3 months. It was like he didn't have any immune system left, but nobody knew why or what caused it. My sister recommended trying Probiotics, so one day I walked into a health food store and went to the service desk. "I don't care how much it costs or what it is, just give me something to have a healthy husband again!" was my general message to the bearded assistant. (why do most men working in health food stores have to have Hittite-like beards???) Instead of taking enormous financial advantage of my desperate state like they could have, the sales clerk recommended an iron supplement and a strong probiotic to start taking. I purchased them and noticed a HUGE difference in both of us once we started taking them. (here's the thing about health journeys: if your spouse is doing something crazy health-wise, its just nice to do it with them. And you probably need to be fixing up your diet yourself,so its just better all-around if you eat the horse pills and off-color foods with them instead of feeding it to them while you dash off to a fast food restaurant)

We started taking vitamins and probiotics regularly. I began avoiding processed foods and packages or frozen goods. We saw some improvements but not a lot. The main thing I knew to do was increase veggies and home cooked meals but that was it. We kept kefir and yogurt around because i knew those had probiotics and when we went out to eat we tried to avoid soda's and always get a side salad with our meal. But I was still getting sick a few times a year - especially in winter - and Kyle still felt worn out all the time.

Finally I talked to my friend's mom who is getting her license as a Nutritional Therapist. (I actually called her for another friend of mine who thought she had MS.) What resulted was a 15 page questionnaire for both Kyle and I and an 8 hour consultation that usually takes an hour per person. (Now, the timing was partially due to the fact that this friend's mom has been praying for me for 10 years and I for her and this was the first time we had met face to face. So we had a lot of talking to do since we both knew all about each other but never met. But for the most part the conversation centered around our health.)
Kyle had severe internal inflammation in all his organs, and I had a good deal myself. Both of us were severely deficit in vitamin and mineral stores in our bodies. Our digestive systems had become so sensitive to carbohydrates and processes sugars that they were causing Kyle digestion issues, and that was why my immune system wasn't working.
'Great." I thought. "We're gonna die at age 35. Or contract some horrible chronic illness!" My friend's mom calmed my fears by saying that yes, if we had continued on in the way we were going we probably would have contracted some form of chronic illnesses in a few years. BUT since we were catching it now and wanted to change, that didn't have to happen. But we had to change some stuff.
My friend did the consultations all for free and didn't and doesn't want any credit. She didn't sell us anything and she didn't prescribe anyone who did.
Rather, she gave us resources and places to find good information. She gave us basic guidelines.
1. Take your body weight, divide it in half. That's how many ounces of water you should be drinking PER DAY. If you have any diuretic drink - such as soda, coffee, or tea - add an extra 2 ounces to your daily quota PER diuretic drink. So if you have 3 cups of coffee that 6 more ounces of water you need to drink.
2. Every time you eat, be it full meal, snack, or whatever, make sure you have a oil, good fat, and complex carbohydrate.
3. Find raw milk and only use that. It has powerful enzymes that aid in digestion. Pasteurized milk has all the good bugs boiled out of it and is basically just fat - and whatever hormones or antibiotics they gave the cow!
4.Avoid WHITE foods: white sugar, white salt, white flour, potatoes, etc. and stick to complex carbs.
5. Buy healthy oils and use good fats in cooking and get rid of dead or volatile oils in cooking. So goodbye crisco and vegetable oil! (I never used margarine. It tasted like plastic to me and come to find out, it IS plastic!) And hello cold pressed virgin oils, butter, and lard! (yes, lard. Preferably duck lard but pastured-pork lard is also good. And yes I will talk about weight gain in a minute so hang on)
6. Use sea salt and butter. Use them often, use them lovingly, use them generously. They contain vitamins and minerals and properties that help your body assimilate other vitamins and minerals in digestion.
7. Focus on Whole foods and Nutrient-density. Red meat, salmon, and soaked grains fall into this category.
8. Because our bodies were in deficit, we needed to focus on HEALING our bodies. Not just switching stuff around. Drastic fast changes to diet was NOT recommended as this would through everything into shock and cause more harm than good. Rather we needed to make slow changes. Switching out a few things per week was the goal, not cleaning out the entire fridge and pantry and starting from scratch. We also needed to get some good supplements of vitamins and minerals to replenish our depleted immune system stores.

Sound pretty counter-intuitive? I mean, she's telling us to eat fatty, buttery, salty food, right? Everyone knows thats bad for you! Originally when I wrote this part of my 3-part blog post on health my response to 'your gonna gain weight!" was part of this post. But again, it got too long. So stay tuned to next time! I don't want this to turn into another health/food blog, because there are so many of them out there and seriously there is more to life besides obsessing about food! However I do want this to be a blog that celebrates The Good Life in Christ, and I strongly believe that eating WELL is part of that life. So I hope I haven't bored you with this healthy food talk. I hope you are learning and growing and being challenged to ask questions and find out more for yourself!

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The pen is mightier than...

2/8/2015

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We never really did Valentines day cards growing up and I never really did anything once I moved out on my own. But I was shopping at World Market last week and browsed their holiday section. So many ways to spend money! They have so much cute junk! So I splurged and bought a small package of these adorable vintage style valentines day cards. I thought I'd just send them to my single friends and my pen-pals and anyone else I felt needed a good cheering up. So I pulled out my address book and began addressing the envelopes. Before I knew it, the entire package was gone! And I hadn't even started on any of my family members I thought might like a valentines!
SO I'll probably trudge on back to World Market and pick up another packet...

The last few years have been full of letters that had agendas, hurtful accusations, slander and malice. At first it made me cringe away from the written word. However after a lot of prayer I felt inspired and convicted to do the opposite: pour out encouragement and love through the written word and in a tangible, cheerful note.
I felt a little weird at first so talked to my husband about it. A lot of the friends I write are busy housewives with babies or have very busy careers and don't have much time to write back. Yet I keep writing. Was I wasting my time I asked? My husband smiled and took my hand. No one dislikes getting an encouraging card in the mail was his response. Sending cards isn't bringing an unreached tribe in the Amazon basin to the Lord, but it is still a ministry. Its encouragement, which is a ministry.

So sending valentines to my single friends who have careers (or busy housewife friends who can't find sitters for the romantic holiday to spend time with their husbands) is my little way of reaching out to fellow believers and blessing them. How has God convicted you to bless others in a small but real way today?

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Flowers

9/30/2014

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This is the third time i've written this blog post, because the blog server keeps deleting what I've written each time I add pictures! I guess it might be the Holy Spirit giving me plenty of opportunities to rewrite what I've written and reevaluate what I've said, so here goes. Third time the charm, right?
This last weekend was very intense. Friday I drove down to the inlaws where my husband was staying so that his commute isn't so long during Firefighter training. Saturday we both made ourselves beautiful and drove to Toledo for my cousin's wedding. Sunday we had breakfast with the Grandparents and then after bumming around Toledo and getting a few patches and visiting Corporal Klinger's beloved Tony Packo's, we drove to Dayton. There we had lunch with assorted family members and then drove back to the in-laws so that my husband wouldn't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to drive back to training and arrive on time at 7am. I got up and drove back home to shop for the rich lady and get some of our own grocery shopping done, then had dinner with one of my best friends.
Then I FINALLY got home.
Whew!
So today I have: done two loads of laundry, read some of the Orchid Books my Grandpa gave me, repotted some of my orchids after learning new things about their needs, and passed several levels of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.
See along with all of the traveling - which would have been intense enough, there was basically every emotion imaginable experienced in the last four days. So the reason why I have taken such joy at exploding jewels on cyberspace is because I've been doing a lot of processing. I had several really amazing conversations this weekend which really needed to happen. And there were some conversations that didn't take place that I really wish would happen and to be honest that kind of hurts. BUT as I have said before this blog is not a place for me to vent my sob-story so instead of writing any further about that I shall focus on what the title of this post says: Flowers! I have been exposed to several AMAZING flowers and flower arrangements this weekend and I am going to share them with you. So enjoy!

I knew by the time I got home these would have all died or wilted, so I picked them for my mother-in-law

One of the hanging arrangements that lined the entryway to the little alcove of plants where my cousin got married

I love roses but haven't mastered growing them in my own garden. I think I'll finish learning about orchids before I invest in any more roses for my garden. So I enjoyed these ones at the zoo!!

The table settings were GORGEOUS. I really wish I had thought to grab some of the succulents before I left because I'm afraid they were all thrown away after the wedding!

AAAANd now for you to see my absolute favorite parts of the wedding:

I don't know what was said but apparently it was funny and concerning all at the same time!

My Uncle having a 'Pirate's of the Caribbean' moment

Us behaving like ladies

us tickling each other and trying to hold our pose at the same time

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Rite of passage

7/24/2014

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I know I literally just updated my blog a matter of minutes ago, but I HAD to share this. I just checked facebook and saw this heartrending post from a girl who I'd fallen out of touch with, but who was a fun classmate of mine back in college: Friends and Family, I wanted to update you and let you know that Sunday night I broke my left foot.
I'll be getting a cast or boot tomorrow morning, and will know more about what the next month of healing will look like--but I will most likely not be able to walk on it for some time.

This week has been difficult both physically and emotionally and yet I know that God is teaching me so many things. This is the weakest I have ever been. Not only is it difficult to do basic things like cooking, bathing, and getting around the house--there are details and plans to finish up in the next 17 days before Mike and I marry.

God is sovereign. Before Sunday I have never broken a bone or even twisted an ankle, yet 3 weeks before my wedding this happens. I know that God knows what He is doing.

He knows that my heart has for years dreamed about what my wedding will be like and how I will look. This idolatry has clouded the reality of what marriage is and has even killed the joy that I can have on my wedding day.

He knows that I am very stubborn and even fear asking people for help and in His kindness He is humbling my proud heart and forcing me to ask for help.

He knows that so often I put my hope in tomorrows. He is constantly and patiently teaching me that I must only and can only hope in Him.

Oh my Father knows what I need.

I have cried a lot this week, but mostly when I see how selfless and Christlike Mike has been to me. He has taken every burden on that he can find--only that I may find joy in Jesus and know that God loves me. I am so amazed that I get to marry this man.

Yesterday, my dad told me with all sincerity that if I cannot walk down the aisle--he will carry me. Yeah--I cried after this too.

And so--I may not look the way I've always dreamed, I may not have the decorations together, I may not be able to dance but as the Lord wills-- I will marry Michael Lambelet and for this I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for how good the Lord is and for the many ways He is faithful to me.

Its ironic that I should be reading this almost one year since Kyle and I got married. A flood of memories came back to me and I had to respond. Here is what I wrote:

Dear friend, I just read your heartfelt post and I had to respond. A few months before my wedding I sprained my ankle and I know how scary that is! By God's grace it healed in plenty of time before my wedding, BUT: Right before I sprained my ankle my sister had moved in with me and was very emotionally needy, and my parents shunned me during all of that time. It really rocked my faith and killed my joy about the wedding. Whenever we'd start to talk about plans I'd burst into tears, as my youngest sister couldn't be my flower girl, my mom wouldn't be helping me plan anything, my dad wouldn't be saying anything dorky yet eloquent. I had to really sacrifice a lot of my dreams. Most of them were idolatrous and silly, but some were important. I felt really guilty throughout it all - guilty for being happy, for not being happy, etc. But I learned an important lesson: A wedding is not a sparkly party where we look beautiful. A wedding is not a social event. A wedding is not a dream come true. A wedding is a rite of passage. A wedding is a huge symbol of becoming the woman God has planned for you to become. And the way you travel through that rite of passage is very symbolic of what kind of woman you will become. I went through clinging to God and leaning heavily on my then fiance' for guidance and support. If you are carried down the isle in your earthly fathers arms - oh how beautiful! I'm tearing up as I write it. No it won't be as you dreamed, but how tenderly powerful as your father literally hands you over to your new husband! Emily how much more powerful than walking! Every bride walks down holding onto her fathers arms. How many girls are carried by their fathers? I know you are in physical and emotional pain now, but I encourage you dear sister to focus on the blessing this tragedy is turning into. I hope this was encouraging and not anything else. I'll be praying for you dear girl! I'm so excited you have met your soulmate!!! MIss you girly and don't lose sight of the ultimate awesomeness: YOU GET TO BE A MRS SOON!!!!!

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June 04th, 2014

6/4/2014

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So as if Monday wasn't enough to make me feel thankful, then this morning I saw a special on PBS about an AWESOME outreach in Chicago called Albany Park Theater Project (APTP). Inner city kids go and get free theater lessons and help write plays based on their stories. Its not a Christian ministry, but it is doing powerful work amongst kids who really need someone to come along side them. I've honestly thought about ordering the PBS documentary and showing it at my Church and following it up with a time of reflecting and asking everyone to please lets just overhaul our whole ministry model and strategy. Listening to the kids testimonies and seeing where they lived made me think of the kids I left when I finished my time volunteering at the Orphanage in Romania (a place I've been thinking a lot about recently). I want to bloom where God's planted me, but the soil He put me in just doesn't really seem conducive to blooms!
    But then I look at my garden and the chalky red clay that is everywhere else in the yard. And I look at the gorgeous blooms the hollyhocks are starting to shoot forth, and the little basil seedlings that are popping up everywhere, and think of the handfuls of strawberries and bowl fulls of peas I'm bringing in each evening. And if God can make a garden in this washed out, nutrient deprived soil then He can use this burnt out, tired old church to do some good in this community as well. But it took a lot of Miracle Grow and compost and supplemental bags of soil from Lowes to make it suitable for plants! Which has made me think a lot and pray a lot about what kind of Miracle Grow God is going to put into this church. We need something. At this point I don't even know what to pray for.
    But I realized watching the PBS special that
    1. At first I was jealous of the director of that ministry. He gets to write and direct plays, has a Ph.D in drama (Whaaaaaat? Dude if I ever get a doctorate its TOTALLY in that!) is financially successful and has lots of awards and acclaims. But his wife died of Ovarian cancer last year. And she's the one he started all of this with and now he has to go forward alone. And while he was smiling at the camera, I know he goes home to a home all by himself and is sad and lonely. I don't feel pity for him, I just became thankful for myself. I was thankful he had a happy marriage while she was alive and I was happy that I have a happy marriage. And while I'm not rolling in the dough, God's given us ENOUGH without struggle. Which is more than I've ever had before.
    2. I realized that, despite it being a hard ministry; despite it being a job that feels like 5 jobs but no one recognizes as a job and I get called a 'kept woman' by various people; despite the lack of consideration from coworkers or fellow Christians; despite the fact that its with kids from hard families who use up anything good until its sucked dry of all goodness and then scream for more; despite all the hardship and ugliness... guess what. I GET TO BE IN MINISTRY!!!! Its a needed ministry, its a HARD ministry, and its planting seeds for the future in a place that most people don't even know exists. And I get to do it.
    Thats a dream come true for me. I've always wanted to be in a ministry that reached the hard to reach. I saw 'remember the Titans' and I wanted to be Denzel Washington's character: a mean ol' cuss who won the respect of kids and dragged them from the gutter and inspired them to BE somebody.
    Last week I had all the kids write notes of encouragement to each other and they gave me one too. One of the kids wrote, "Mz Rachel, you're sometimes mean. But I know you're mean because you are trying to teach us and help us do better. And you're really pretty and a great mentor."
(stupid janitor threw all the cards away so I don't have it anymore!!)
    I read that note and almost cried. I get called 'mean' all the time. But that was the first time anyone recognized why. Everyone knows tough love is rough on the person recieving it. No one acknowledges tough love is reeeeally tough on the person giving the tough love. Its easier to be walked all over.

    I love Laura Story's song 'Blessing' and I put it here so you could listen to it too. Sometimes blessings are good and sweet and gorgeous like basil or anemone's or strawberries. Sometimes they come through hardship and toil like roses and thistle blooms or onions. Or like thunderstorms that give rain but are still loud and scary and noisy. Either way they are still blessings, and its important to be thankful for them - yes not just in spite of but BECAUSE OF the packages they come in.
    I don't know if any of this is making sense, but its what I'm pondering and going through right now so I thought I'd share. I hope it helps you along your journey.

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The wheels on the bus...

6/3/2014

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'Hey, whatcha doin today?' was the innocent text I received about 10:30 yesterday. I didn't have much planned so I agreed to help my friend and former bridesmaid to navigate our bus system in preparation for the oncoming semester. She wanted to save on gas money, and her bus fare would be free now that she was a student. I'm always up for an adventure, right?? Well...
Remembering that, overseas, the bus was NEVER on time, and it was quite easy to get lost on it, I asked if she knew the schedule and which routes we would be taking. I was assured that 'Here in 'Merica" the bus arrives on a dependable, consistent 15 minute interval at each stop, and the routes were clearly marked on the website.
Ha.
We got to the bus station where two African American gentlemen were already waiting, smoking. "Good mornin to ya, ladies." One said as we walked up. We both said hi. "Ya'll are looking exceptionally good t'day!" we blinked and made no reply. After trying to find out where we lived and where we were going (which we gave very VAGUE answers to and I asked them the same questions to which they also gave vague responses to) my friend and I started talking about all our mission trips and various means of travel in various countries. After a while one of the guys noticed my wedding ring. "I see you are married." I smiled and nodded. "When'd you get married?" he asked. "August. So we're still newlyweds." I said, grinning extra wide and hoping he would take the hint that Kyle and I are HAPPILY married. The man nodded and made no response but a few minutes later they both got up and offered us their seats. It was very interesting, because I felt like when we first walked up we were being hit on, and they were trying to find out where we lived to find out where the party was. But once they saw that we were polite, educated ( my friend talked to me in a bit of spanish) and they found out that I was married and happily so, they started being really helpful and gentlemanly. It was kind of touching but I felt a very interesting lesson. Act like a lady and you'll earn the respect and treatment of being a lady. But most people aren't used to girls being ladies anymore, so they treat them bad. Of course that's not to say this will work always, as you'll see as I continue in our adventure.

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My Mind's Meanderings

Short and sweet!

You've gone Crunchy?!

Green and gross

The pen is mightier than...

Flowers

Rite of passage

June 04th, 2014

The wheels on the bus...

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