Thoughts for the day...

I've yet to host a holiday meal (well, not true we had Brian's family our very first Christmas) but I'm beginning to see that I could very well be one of those families that orders take-out during a holiday. I enjoy home cooked food so much more when someone else is making it.
Cooking is certainly NOT my strong point. But here I stare at 3 kilos of unwashed, unpeeled, uncooked potatoes and all the ingredients for green bean casserole....
I think for our family we may start a tradition of baking only (especially for Christmas)  and ordering from somewhere like crackle barrel for the meal....oh wait, that's right. never mind.
Ha, you'd think I was cooking a whole meal for 40 people...nope, just two side dishes ;) It's no big thing at all, I'm happy to do it. Especially since the families we are celebrating with are ones who are always doing so much for others. My contribution to the afternoon is small in comparison.
  I'm just thinking about future holidays when I'm responsible for making precious memories for my family, and ensuring they understand what the holiday (mainly thinking Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving here) is really about. What holiday expectations will I give my children? You want the fun memories, don't want them to miss out on the holiday festivities, but you don't want to be so worked up about a perfect table setting, the menu, or the perfect gift that they can't even explain or appreciate what the holiday is REALLY about. I can get so caught up in my "to do" list and wanting everything to be "in order" so that I can really relax on the holiday that I sometimes wear myself down. And up until this year it's always been as a single girl, or a married lady with no kids. What might that look like in the future, when I have a child looking at me as an example. I don't want her memories to be that of her mom always rushing, cleaning, trying to make perfect and not having time to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and read the story of Jesus with her. I want to make the time to make cookies together and imperfectly (I have these Martha Stewart expectations I'll never live up to) or have meaningful family conversations and time spent in God's word. I want all the celebrating around these holidays to be God honoring and family focused. Not festivity centered and child or others focused. This year my baby doesn't understand anything but my mood, so I'm working on that. No egg hunts, dying eggs or even baking because, well she is a little young, and it would only take away from  my time with her and her dad. But she certainly picks up on my mood, so  what is most important for me this holiday season is being sure that in all I do - ironing her pretty dress, making food, taking care of her sick dad, taking care of her- I do it joyfully unto the Lord. Which is how everyday should be lived. So let me leave my laziness and homesickness and perfectionist tendencies at His feet, and walk into this beautiful day He has given me with joy and thanksgiving. In His death and resurrection I have all I need, much more than I deserve.  I pray that every day this is the message my daughter sees me living out... day by day... He took up the cross for me, so I do daily for Him, and as an example to her

In the middle of writing this, my delightful baby, who had been playing at my feet, had a blow out diaper, then it was time for her lunch, then the washer was done, dry clothes on the line got folded and put up to make room for the wet ones now hanging, new load in washer, baby down for nap, potatoes now washed, diaper bag packed for tomorrow, and just as I sat back down to finish this, baby woke up. Time to get my happy darling, feed her and spend some joyful time with her. The green bean casserole can wait for her next nap!

Our Hope

   The sun is bright as the snow falls mid-day. Reflections dance in the puddles of water scattered through the streets as men, women and children walk across the roads and down the broken sidewalks trying to stay dry as they hurry on their way. Half the children heading home from school, the older half  heading for school. Home, work, school, their destinations and business are unknown to me, but I look intentionally at each face that passes, thinking on the mundane tasks that make up our days, hoping they would all be able to slow down to see the beauty of the little moments in life. Ultimately, praying something in their day will cause them to think about what they were created for - relationship with their creator. In the beauty and rush of mid-day, we are ridding through the streets of this city, heading to a funeral. Is there anything more final or sobering in life that causes the ages and cultures to pause, to grieve, to wonder what they are really living for?...

   You know the passages in scripture, the ones where Jesus goes to a funeral? There are several recorded in the Gospel's, but two came to mind today. The one where he raises the widow's son (Luke 7:11-16) and the one where he raises Jarius' daughter (Luke 8:49-54) For some reason, perhaps how they were told to me in Sunday School as a child or maybe they were portrayed this way on film, I always think of great grief and wailing when I think on these accounts. Of course, Luke's account says, speaking of Jesus and the widow, "his heart went out to her and He said "Don't cry." Even if it didn't we can imagine that a widow who just lost her son would most certainly be crying! I imagine those following the burial procession were audibly grieving too. In Luke 8:52 it says "meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her (Jarius' daughter) 'Stop wailing' Jesus said."
   Today, I saw first hand, for the first time, what that heart wrenching sorrow looks like. I was not prepared for it, although I should have been. The man who passed, He is a believer. He is home and in the presence of his Savior, King, Father. He fought a short but fierce battle with cancer and rather than bring partial healing to his flesh, God, in His wisdom and mercy, healed him wholly and took his spirit home. His wife, a dear friend of ours - Brileigh's "nana" - along with their two sons and daughter in law are also believers. However, many of their extended family is not. I should have expected what I experienced for a few reasons. First, we are living in a culture so similar to the one Jesus lived in, and they way they view death and carry out a funeral procession has not changed much. Second, I knew there were not many believers in the family. Finally, he was only 56. His mother is still living, so many friends and family still alive, and while he had cancer, many hoped for remission, recovery and many more years of life for their brother. We hoped the same. Just yesterday, our friend talked about how tired she has become because she has to wake up in the middle of the night to give her husband injections, and she stays awake late to care for him. She didn't mind, she wasn't complaining, she was just talking about sleep patterns as it pertained to our language lesson yesterday. She would say he is so very sick, she really didn't expect him to live much longer, but she prayed always for his healing and held out hope. I was not expecting to hear later that day that he died. Even when death is impending, its moment is all too sudden...

  We arrive, and I see the white tent outside her house, the sight of which makes it feel very real. I see those tents so often and pray for those effected by the death represented, but today it was effecting someone I hold dear. As I walk to the front of her house, door opened, the first thing I notice are all the shoes, a big long pile of them. The house is not big, but many women are crammed inside. I step in, looking down, I can hear the sorrow, tears, cries, wailing, a woman crying out the name of the deceased, crying out the name of her son. My friend stands and walks toward us as we take off our shoes, she hugs Cathy, a believer who experienced the loss of her first husband earlier in life. Cathy holds her tight as our friend cries, and I know she is praying for her. I pray for her. I start to look around the room and realize our brother is lying in the middle of the living room floor, in a box, covered with a cloth, surrounded by women with sorrowful faces and covered heads. The two bedrooms off the living room are also full of women with tears in their eyes. I hug my friend, kiss her check and tell her we love her, and she wipes tears from her eyes as she pulls the blanket back from my sleeping daughter, snuggled in my arms, and kisses her check. She sighs. Brileigh brings her joy. I look forward to that in the days ahead. She turns and hugs another friend who came in with us, a strong sister who whispers a prayer in her ears and again, I look at the scene before me. I pray that the sorrow these women (the men were all outside, in the white tent awaiting the body to be carried out. They would then follow the body to the burial site and the women would stay behind) are feeling and expressing would be replaced with the hope I know my friend feels.

 While she felt and expressed deep grief over the lose of her husband, her life partner, or as they say here her "yol yadash" -which means road companion- she has hope. It's the hope Paul speaks about in 1 Thessalonians 4, that we will all be with Jesus one day. Death is not the end, Jesus has overcome the grave. For those of us who believe on Him there is great hope for this life in that this life is not the end.
I pray that somehow, God will use the death of His child to bring many more children into His family.
  I continue to pray for this dear brother's family, those he left behind, those who grieve for him. It was a very new experience for me, seeing the way his muslim mother grieved. It was heartbreaking. But there was hope in the midst. His eldest son told Brian "yes, I am sad. My father is gone, but he is not suffering here any more. He is in a better place, he is with the Father and we do not have to be sorry about that."

Brileigh with her "nana" who is only a year older than Brileigh's grandma's.

 That puts her loss in perspective for me. 

 

"Best dessert you ever made!"

That is what my husband said after trying a piece of this apple fritter cake.

It's nothing fancy I just whipped up on my own, I don't do that sort of thing. I found the recipe while browsing through Pinterest, along with a few other apple recipes I hope to try in the near future...in fact, I have one of them cooking right now! Although, I have a feeling it isn't going to be the success this dessert was/is...

I just cut a slice out of this cake for us to "taste test" to see if it was good enough to share. It is. So the rest of the cake (along with some carmel and ice cream) are going with us to our friend's house tonight. Hopefully they, and their 5 kids, will enjoy it.


Want to try it for yourself? Find the recipe here <---