As I have talked about on the blog before, my family enjoys “clean eating” and real food recipes. Our goal is to eat minimally processed whole foods that I can prepare in a healthy and tasty way. When I make this carrot cake loaf, I use a variety of flours and grains; local, raw honey; Tropical Traditions coconut oil, homemade yogurt from fresh Jersey cow milk, local pastured eggs, organic fruits and vegetables, homemade vanilla extract, and organic maple syrup….
The Pursuit of Hospitality
Before my son was born, hosting guests in our home looked very different than it does for me now that I have a toddler on the loose. No longer do our guests arrive to find a 5 or 6 dish meal with homemade biscuits on the table, where we all open our Bibles and carry on (uninterrupted) conversations about the book of Galatians or the doctrine of baptisms.
Although my little guy finally sleeps all night (most of the time!), and my husband and I look slightly less like baggy-eyed raccoons than we did last year at this time, I still will probably never attempt to create meals for guests like I did before the commencement of motherhood (from-scratch-pasta anyone? a multiple course Asian meal?). These days, I just try to make sure that the peas are salted, double-check that the dishwasher did its thing for the silverware, and scoot trains from off the rug at the front door.
Oh, and prep my two-year-old not to pee on our company. Stuff like that.…
Homemaking {A Most Holy Offering}
As I’m chipping dried mustard from off the back of the high chair while on the phone (“on hold” again) hassling with the doctor’s office over insurance deductibles or co-pays, it feels like real spiritual work is being neglected, and I’m relegated to menial housework and tension headaches.
So often the practical, mundane, and repetitive tasks of keeping the home feel burdensome and draining……and very unspiritual. However, making your house a home can be a means of offering worship to God and serving Him in obedience and gratitude….
Infertility, Miscarriage, and the Gospel
Last summer I was pregnant with our 3rd child. We had miscarried our first (baby Samuel), we had a healthy little boy running around our home, and God had blessed us with another child. At my 12 week checkup with this third pregnancy, however, there was no heartbeat. Due to various reasons, we had to have a D & C, and it of course took me a couple of days to recover.
The next week it seemed that I “woke up” and realized what had just happened. We had lost our little baby (baby Joy), and I had to face God all over again with my pain and heartache. I pulled out a book by C. S. Lewis that my brother had given me (the book had, Providentially, been a Christmas gift the week before we miscarried our first child), as the message therein had been a source of great comfort to me after our first miscarriage. I preached to myself again the gospel and the words that had comforted me 2 1/2 years earlier after our first loss. I began to recount to myself what God had done and where God had brought me. The words I wrote then are recorded below.. ♥…
Trusting God when He Breaks Your Heart
{As I write these words to you on Trusting God when He Breaks Your Heart, I tread very cautiously, as I understand the great responsibility of speaking rightly and truthfully to you on the character of God. With much prayer and after months of working to write this article so that it speaks nothing more and nothing less than God declares in His word, I ask God to show you glorious truths about Himself and to reveal the knowledge of God to you in a deeper and more intimate way.}…
A Theology of Food (and 11 baby steps for a real food lifestyle)
Clean eating, real food, and whole foods are buzzwords these days. It’s popular and has been deemed social-media-worthy to share how and when we create nutritious recipes or work out at the gym. But, of what benefit is “eating clean” to the Christian wife and mother, the single college girl, or the retired empty-nester? I want to offer to you our own clean eating journey in the hopes that it will help and inspire you to enjoy good food and make healthy choices for yourself and your family.
Most important things first.. Is a mom who wakes up an hour before the kids to prepare and serve them a nutritious, whole foods breakfast honoring God more than the mom who wakes up when the kids climb in her bed and then feeds them corn flakes? Maybe she does honor God more, and maybe she doesn’t. But it has nothing to do with breakfast and healthy food, because “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” Romans 14:17….