New Blog, Life Updates, and Easter Reflections

So good...

As I promised on Facebook, I posted the recipes for our grilled steak meal last weekend...on my new recipe blog! I will continue blogging here, but check in on that blog for new and updated recipes as I continue this cooking adventure.

We're still having extremely fickle weather. One day it's in the 50s, the next day in the 30s. I'm getting kinda tired of this. Indiana, make up your mind!

Easter is fast approaching, causing me to reflect on past Easters and, of course, on the meaning of Easter. We've all heard the story so many times that it can become very routine and unexciting, just the same old resurrection story again.

And then of course there's the commercial aspect. Every retailer out there, from clothing to food to home goods, is trying to capitalize on another holiday, another reason to spend money. Quite frankly, if next weekend is anything like last weekend, it'll be too cold to wear those pretty sundresses and run around outside!

I'm blessed to say that I've gotten a new job and will be starting this week. Of course, when I finally get a job on night shift, they switch my honey back to second shift! It seems we just can't manage to be on the same shift anymore! It's frustrating, but this new job should provide a much more manageable schedule, plus more money and a better work environment, so I'm very excited about it.

That being said, this Sunday we will both be on night shift until morning, and then be too exhausted to make it through a church service without falling asleep. Unfortunately it will be the first Easter in many years that I haven't made it to church, but sometimes that's just how it goes. The Lord is more concerned with our hearts.

#3 with me, Easter 2014

So this year we plan to hide eggs for each other in the house, and hopefully will spend the afternoon (after catching up on sleep, that is) visiting with some very dear friends. A low-key day, but usually those are the best, really.

Easter...what does it mean, anyway? It's another originally pagan holiday that was Christianized to commemorate Jesus' rising from the dead. The simple fact that Jesus is alive should be celebrated every single day in the way that we live, because if He did not come back to life after being crucified, He would not be God and our faith would be placed in just another man. Our daily lives should reflect an ongoing delirium of joy and resolution of character simply because Jesus is alive and our faith is real. Sometimes we need a holiday to remind us of that, but while we are glad to celebrate on this day, every day should be an Easter celebration in our hearts and reflected by our actions of love towards others.

So this Easter, celebrate in any way that appropriately reflects the kind of love that would die an excruciating death, because that love is ALIVE, that love is in us, and that love just can't be kept in a tomb or in a heart without spilling out and into more hearts and lives.

On Faith and Experiences

I've seen their kind before. The churches whose entire service is based around experiences. The ones whose worship services play to your emotions, and whose messages are based on what they think you want to hear. That's the kind of church we visited last weekend.

Experiences. Since when is faith based on experiences?

What is the definition of faith?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb 11:1 NKJV

Things hoped for, things not seen. Not a word of faith coming from emotional experiences. That's not to say that God doesn't often reveal something of Himself to us in experiences, but they cannot be the foundation of your faith.

If your faith is based on what you feel, what happens when you don't feel it anymore? What happens when your child is injured, your spouse leaves, your parent is dying, you are betrayed and wounded - the pain inside of you is the strongest thing you feel, and God is silent? What happens then?

Faith that is based on experiences is too fragile to withstand the storms. And I have lived long enough to know that all experiences can be explained away in other ways. An emotional experience, a whisper in the night, a miracle, a dream come true - maybe God, maybe your own suggestiveness and the consequences of your own or others' actions. And a lack of those things does not mean God is no longer there.

God is more than the experience. When you can't feel Him, He's still there. When you can't see Him moving, He hasn't stopped caring. When you can't hear Him, He hasn't left you alone.

The experiences are great, but the solid foundation of truth in His recorded word is greater. Emotions can lie to you. Many people have done completely ungodly things in God's name because they had an experience. Simply to feel is not enough - you have to know, you have to believe, you have to accept.

Too many churches today are hawking this kind of faith, the kind that relies on an emotional experience and leaves you feeling buoyant and positive at the end of the service with no change, no conviction, no truth spoken.

Others swing to the opposite side of the spectrum and leave no room for the Holy Spirit to move, relying only on what has been said before. This is just as wrong, as the scripture is clear that we are not to quench the Holy Spirit, whose job it is to convict and encourage believers. Just be careful it is the Spirit's voice and not any other voices you listen to, and match what you hear and feel with what you know of God.

You cannot base faith simply on experiences, but experiences can strengthen and encourage your faith. And we will keep searching for a church body, one that can find the middle ground between the extremes and grow us in the right direction. I miss having a church body to fellowship with, but every church we've tried around here keeps leaving us disappointed and discouraged. We'll keep praying...

Spring is Coming!

Spring is in the air! Oh hallelujah! Today it's 48 outside, sunny with a light breeze, most of the snow is melted off and birds are singing...there's just that something in the air that lets you know that winter is giving up its icy grip, spring is surely coming.

March 2014, the grass just starting to poke through

I love spring. As my mother would say, it's one of my four favorite seasons! However, until I moved to Indiana I had never seen four separate seasons. As much as I have come to dislike the long and frigid winters here, I have also come to love the springs.

It starts with that breeze - not the icy, cutting, howling wind of winter that somehow pierces through no matter how many layers of clothes you are wearing, but the gentle breeze of spring. The breeze brings with it the promise of new life, warmth and welcome, and the reminder that nothing is forever - this too shall pass.

Suddenly you start to see hints of green poking through the dead and decaying layer of grass, leaves, and dirt left behind by all the snow. The trees begin to bud and eventually blossom into the delicate bright green of new life. Flowers push through the soil, renewing rain washes away the crud of winter, and the earth responds with warmth and growth.

After a refreshing spring rain, 2014

Next thing you know, grocery stores are populated with summer fruits like nectarines, plums, even watermelon. Clothing stores display their brightest summer dresses and nearly everywhere you go flowers of all sizes, shapes, and colors are worn. You can almost feel the energy and life!

Eventually spring's brightness and warmth will grow to summer's heat and the flowers will give way to the shade of towering trees. Hot humidity will make the air thick and hard to breathe, and as sweat trickles down our backs we will strive to remember what the cold of winter felt like. We will run in the grass and grow tanned from the sun, and after the sun has set we will sit on the warmth remaining in the earth and enjoy the cool of the day.

But this too shall pass, as summer's heat makes way for fall's rich colors and crisp air. The leaves fall from the trees, crops ripen and are harvested, and we trade our summer clothes for warmer knits to guard against the growing coolness around us. Eventually fall fades into winter, and all life seems to lay dormant, waiting for the chance to regenerate again into bright, beautiful spring.

Sept 2013

Winter may not have given up for good yet - after all, Indiana weather is fickle and constantly changing - but I have already longingly glanced at my collection of bright tshirts, shorts, and flipflops. There is a need for each season on earth, and each has its own joys and discomforts, but yet my heart yearns for spring.

Just like the earth's seasons, our life has its own seasons. Right now I am thankful for the many blessings we have been given, and learning to focus on the positives instead of the negatives of life. Probably by the end of this year, our season of life will change, and I look forward to what those changes will mean. I know that the God who created the world and reigns over its seasons also cares about the seasons of our lives, and will give us grace and strength to meet each of those seasons. I am also thankful that life is a journey through seasons, and that though life has many changes along the way, I know the One who is constant and unchanging through them all, steady as the waves of the ocean and strong as the Grand Canyon walls. Wherever we go, whatever changes in life, He is the same in every season.