the best chili and marriages

My cousin made chili for us last night.  It was the best I'd ever tasted!  He doesn't use recipes.  He just enjoys designing anything, including food.

I spoke about him briefly on this blog one other time.  He owned a custom landscaping business in California, not far from where we used to live.  The housing market crashed and never recovered there.  He lost his home and business--he is 48, making this a bigger tragedy--and had to move back here last year to live with his parents and his wife of two years.  They bought a fixer-upper home--not inhabitable yet--that he's busy renovating.  It had to be gutted so the process is a long one.  It will be a nice 2200 square-foot home when the work is complete, not including the large walk-in basement.

His parents are now wintering in Florida--probably a blessing.

His wife is a Christian; he is not.  Her husband passed away about five years before she met Rick.  I am hoping we can be friends, and that my husband can mentor him and counsel him in his marriage, which isn't going well.  Counseling and one-on-one discipleship are my husband's greatest strengths.

Please pray for them?  Like many Americans, they are having to make difficult adjustments--challenging their ability to meet the ingrained needs men and woman have in their marriages. Men, above all, want to be respected and appreciated.  Women need to feel loved and cherished. When a crumbled economy challenges a man's ability to provide, he finds it harder to do the cherishing.  And when the man isn't providing, for whatever reason, the woman finds it harder to respect and appreciate.  Put a sense of hopelessness in the mix and you have quite the recipe for disaster, unless God is supreme in the marriage.

Now, on to that recipe.

I don't usually have time to chop anything--all my cooking is done while chasing a toddler--so unfortunately we use powered spices most of the time.  This chili, however, is worth the effort!  Perhaps I'll have to make a batch after the kids are in bed.

Rick's Chili

1 lb. leanest hamburger
5 links hot and sweet sausage (casings removed, most of fat drained after cooking)
1 15 oz. can chili beans
1 15 oz. can white beans
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1/2 stalk celery with leaves, chopped
1 can tomato paste ( I forgot to ask, but I presume the 8 oz. size)
1 can tomato sauce (15 oz., approx.)
1 can water (depending on consistency you desire)
 spices to taste (garlic powder, Mrs. Dash, parsley, chili powder)

I didn't write down many directions, but I think he said he saved enough liquid from the meat to soften the vegetables, then he added the meats back in, followed by the rest of the ingredients.  He cooked it for three hours.

Enjoy!

Paul's writings (grade 1)

One day there was a boy who liked football.  His fovart taem was Arkansas.  He liked to cheer and he watched it and learned more and more.

The End

________________________

A Poem

Our hamster is so funny
He's better than a bunny
For good sakes his name is Jack the Black!
He is so gentel
Better than a mule
He's not such an eater
he doesn't drink that much
But he's still the perfit pet

________________________

One day there was a butterfly and a ladybug.  The butterfly was blue and red.  The ladybug was black and yellow.  They liked kickball and soccer.  They got some friends to play with.  There names were Fastfly and Big-bug and Go-bug and Go-fly.  The butter-flys team won.

a tragedy needing prayer

I came across this post about a three-year-old who died five hours after a heavy dresser crushed his head into the concrete floor. Oh, please pray!  This happened on December 12th, and the mother continually goes over in her mind how she could have done things differently that night. Prayers will help restore peace in her heart.

The father, in deciding whether to buy the dresser, stood on it and other things to make sure it was sturdy enough to withstand a toddler's abuse. They had put their TV on it because it was the sturdiest piece of furniture they owned.

Furniture can be so dangerous!

self-pity, a grave sin

Sometimes, when I proclaim my happiness to my housemates, they say, "But you don't seem that happy."

Ouch.

How it grieves me to hear that!  I know my heart.  I am a fulfilled woman.

So why doesn't my happiness convey?

Because in the course of a day I become irritated by all that is demanded of me--the constant messes, the dishes, the laundry, the discipline and training of imperfect children.  I may have joy at my core, but outwardly my circumstances get the best of me, to my shame.

What I most want is to be the face of Jesus in the lives of these children, this husband.

But how?

I think I've found my answer, again--I've found it before and lost it!--in My Utmost For His Highest, a devotional by Oswald Chambers.

"....you may be partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter1:4)

 May 18 entry, text as follows:

We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises.  Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits.  The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us.  We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it."  One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement.  We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny!  We think it is a sign of our true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle."  And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus!  And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him.  Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult?  Why shouldn't they be!  If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision.  No sin is worse than self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests.  It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges--always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied.  And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives. (bold text my emphasis)

Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7)  If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible.  "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you......may have an abundance..." (2 Corinthians 9:8)--then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself.  Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.

As soon as I let self-pity out of the box, I cannot be the face of Christ, even for a moment.  He has paved the way for me to partake of his divine nature.  All of the Almighty God is mine in the Lord Jesus!

Self-pity is my enemy.  Raising young children is a life of physical service.  There's no question that it's exhausting, but as time passes their emotional needs will far exceed their physical ones, and I'll no longer feel like Cinderella.

In the meantime, I need to recognize God's provision for me, letting his divine nature flow through me, as I wipe up oatmeal and peach juice off the floor, glue and peanut butter and jelly off the table, while kissing boo boos, changing diapers, feeding bellies, teaching, and maintaining the steady hum of the washer and dryer and dishwasher.

I need not sink into self-pity by 10:00 a.m., because God has provided for me!

update from last night's "deep thanks" post

I was undone yesterday reading that Ann Voskamp's newborn niece might have meningitis.  This morning I put the water on for our oatmeal, then read this encouraging report from Ann's Friday post:

May we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers for my niece? While she’s still being treated with antibiotics and is in the critical care unit, the doctors have ruled out meningitis (He hears and answers your humble prayers! Thank you, Lord!) Her oxygen levels are the current concern but we are all so hopeful. Yesterday was encouraging — your prayers, His goodness, give courage. Today, to gather up her sisters, the cousins, from my Mama’s to come for a day at the farm! We’ll just keep making love lists…

Praise God!  Such a relief!


When I was twenty-one weeks pregnant with Peter I was told during a routine ultrasound that he had hydrocephalus and swollen kidneys.  I drove home in a tearful daze, wondering if there was a God at all, for less than a year earlier I had lost a precious son at 21 weeks gestation (from unknown causes).  


Delivering the news, the doctor on duty said to me, "You were brave enough to get pregnant at 35, so now you can use that same strength to deal with this."  (Yikes!  Age 35?  Since when is that ancient?  I wish I could go back and tell that guy about the babies (Mary and Beth) I had at age 40 and 42!)

I was still working as a teacher at the time of this ill-fated ultrasound, though I had switched to a charter school catering to homeschoolers. So many people prayed for us and for our precious Peter!  Three days later we saw a specialist,  who said there was no hydrocephalus at all!  Peter still had the swollen kidneys (hydronephrosis) up until birth, but there was no evidence of it following his birth.

I really believe in the power of prayer!  God doesn't always say yes, but when he does, we need not assume it was just a coincidence.