Yummy Vegetable

Want an EASY way to add some vegetables into your life? Try this quick prep recipe!

• Slice zucchini or yellow squash into discs
• Spray with some olive oil or spray butter
• Sprinkle lightly with parmesan cheese (the finely grated from the can is the easiest with this recipe)
• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes on 400. Delicious!

Do you have any quick and easy ways to add healthy food into your busy day? Share them with me!

Rain on Me

Each day I travel the same route on the way to work. The final jaunt on the journey takes me around quite a curve. I love that curve in the road. It makes me slow down(the speed limit is 25mph) and I get to just take those few seconds to enjoy the calm before the hurriedness of the day sweeps in. Just to the side of that bend in the road there is a small lake, probably more like a pond. The towering pines hover over the pond and there have been many mornings that we catch the sun heading up over that tree line. Ready to begin it's own busy work day. But over the last week there has been a change in scenery on my morning drive. The lake, once full with water and ducks doing their morning swim, is now down to just a muddy puddle. What was once hidden beneath the water is now visible. Stumps. Hundreds of them.

Drought does that. The sun busy at work warming and evaporating can drain a once full lake. It is what the sun does. During normal weather conditions the rain that comes balances out this work. But not now. Not when the rains are sparse. And so we are left without the shadows of trees on a glistening lake. We are left with the stubs of the past. Hints of what once was.

As I passed by the curve on my way from work this week, I was taken by that picture. What I must look like when I refuse to be refreshed with HIS living water for a time. A spiritual drought, not brought on by the climate, but by the deliberate refusal to drink. This spiritual drought can bring back to my mind pictures of dead pieces of my old self. Stuff that I know has long been forgiven, but without being nourished by HIS truth, the enemy lets me think the remains are still present. But there is one more thing in the landscape that I noticed. It is a canoe. A red canoe lying on the banks of the lake. It appears to wait with expectation for the rains. A picture of perfect hope. And the good news is that the rains have come. Both here literally in Columbia, but spiritually too. I find that as I wade in the living water once again that He covers over old wounds and makes me whole again. Jesus, He is my own picture of perfect hope.

Colossians 3:7 "You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. "

Praise HIM!

Hurry, Hurry

On Sunday, we ate at a small chain restaurant here in town. We sat down and the waitress ran to us and chunked down the menus and promised to be right back. We watched her as she ran from table to table trying to keep a couple of dozen hungry patrons happy. She returned and I said "wow, you are busy!" I wanted to pray for her at our blessing time but didn't really even get the chance to ask her if there was anything specific to pray for. She had already dashed to the next family. When I left, I felt disappointed because although we did pray for her and the other three or four immensly busy workers, she was too busy to even tell her and bless her in some way. A tip on the bill hardly seemed enough. I really just felt sorry for her.

So today I worked out, took a shower, made coffee, made breakfast, ate breakfast, read my Bible study, loaded the dishwasher, swept the floor, made lunch, fed the dogs, carpooled three kids to school, went to walmart, back to work, met with a student, spoke to a class full of juniors, ate lunch with my wonderful guidance department, checked on ink I ordered, made copies, made nametags, answered students' college questions, returned phone calls, returned emails, confirmed our speakers for tomorrow's retreat one final time, checked the progress of an online survey that I sent out to parents yesterday, went to Staples, printed certificates, printed programs, reminded myself to slow down and.."breathe, breathe, breathe", labeled forty folders, checked on speakers, gathered items for tomorrow's career day retreat, headed out the door, dropped off kids from carpool, came home, sat on the couch (for 2 minutes), took Chad to the community center, went to the grocery store, left the grocery store, unpacked the groceries, folded a load of towels, put away dishes, and sat down to read home email and post here. When I write it all down it sounds just about as crazy as it feels. Busy. Busy. Busy.

So when I read back over the day, I see nothing major. Nothing back-breaking. Just a constant buzzing and flitting around. But I noticed the glaring similarities to the busy waitress' day on Sunday. Hurry, hurry. Busy, busy. Never slowing down enough to bless. Never slowing down enough to be blessed. I can't help but wonder, what am I doing this all for? And what does HE have for me that I may be missing? What person have I missed out on blessing, or being blessed by? All because I'm too busy. And I realized my own busy-ness, when looked through in a new light, was to be pitied as well. Too busy for quiet stillness with HIM is just too busy.

I confess Lord that in all the busy-ness I have failed to relish in the peace you have for me. I confess also that I have missed opportunities to speak your peace into others. I confess that I may have confused a busy day with a full day. Lord, let me be so full, that YOU and YOUR hope will spill over unto all that I come in contact with. Help make my feet fixed, if only for a few minutes, to dangle my toes in Your LIVING water. To be refreshed in and by YOU and Your presence. Thank YOU Lord!

Isaiah 58 (The Message)

Praise HIM!