Free Printable!

Here's a little treat to hold you over until I get my shop set up :)

Download Free Printable Here

Tearing down the house

I spend a lot of time working on my life. I work on my home (keeping it clean and decorating it), I work on my appearance (working out and making an effort to look good), my relationship with the Lord, my marriage, my music, etc. I have felt like I have been putting everything I have into building up my life. I was pouring out my heart to God and asking, "Why am I still not happy? Why am I unsatisfied? My life is fine but my heart is aching." I then read through some verses and found this one that slapped me in the face: 

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.
Proverbs 14:1

Theodore Roosevelt said that "Comparison is the thief of joy." I was looking around at the lives of other people around me, people who struggle with different things than I do, and completely ignoring what the Lord had given me.

I was building my house just to take a sledgehammer to it.

I got absolutely wrecked by this truth. I have an amazing life, but getting my enjoyment of it based on how it was different (better or worse) than another woman's life. My problem was pride.

I was pretty ashamed of this, and I didn't know where to go from there. Then I remembered. God chose me before I was even born. I didn't do anything to deserve his love. I am a daughter, not a slave coming broken and ashamed before his throne.

A friend described her habit of standing in front of a mirror and praying when she felt bad about herself. She would evaluate the negative thoughts against what she knew the Lord thought of her.

"I'm fat, which makes me undesirable."
 You are chosen and loved. 
"Well, I'm unhealthy and I don't feel good."
You were created to have life abundant, and your habits are in the way.

She would come to the conclusion that her worth was not determined by the lumps and bumps she saw, but by the love of her Father. This did not mean that she didn't have room for improvement. It just meant that her worth was not tied to her successes or failures.

This is liberating! I have the ability and commission to improve, but I am not going to lose the love of my Lord if I fail!

This is one of those things that makes you want to dance around and celebrate, so for that I leave you with my dear friend Molly Skaggs' song:

Be blessed!!!

Caroline

God's Gift to Men

I'm referring to God's gift to your man, specifically.

Guess what it is?

YOU!

Before you start walking around all puffed up and self-centered treating your man like he's so lucky that he ever got you, let me explain.

The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. 
Genesis 2:18 

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
Proverbs 31:10

He who finds a wife finds a good things and obtains favor from the Lord.
Proverbs 18:22

House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.  
Proverbs 19:14

You: imperfect, maybe-not-as-thin-as-you-want, sometimes crazy, often not even understanding yourself, are a gift from God to your husband.

Let that sink in.

God loves you so much already, but he also loves your husband. Sometimes that's easy to forget when you are in the heat of an argument or the drudgery of everyday life. He loves your husband so much that he decided he needed help. When you married your husband, you became a vehicle of love. You ARE the Lord's favor when it comes to your husband's life!!

You are like a spoon in a bowl of God's love. Your husband could just stick his face in the bowl and get it himself, but how much better is it that you get to deliver the most incredible love there is!

It is easy to remember that he is intimately loved by God when he is:

• cute
• flirting with you
• doing dishes
• doing any chores
• standing up for you
• etc, etc.

It is NOT as easy to remember that he is a son of the kingdom when he is:

• arguing with you
• sitting on the couch while you do chores
• being rude
• arguing with you

Here's the thing: He will always be a child of God. God will never stop loving him, and that takes some of the pressure off of you. I don't know about you, but thinking that I am totally responsible for providing all the love my husband needs 24/7 is daunting at the least. Realizing that I just have to let the Lord work through me is so comforting. I'm just a delivery girl, not the producer.

No one has seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His Love is made complete in us. 
1 John 4:12

Delightful Dinner

My car has been putting me through the wringer over the past month. The alternator was sending surges of electricity to the engine, which blew out the headlights. The battery then died right before my shift at work, leaving me stranded at our apartment until a friend came to my rescue. We bought a new battery and alternator, and Everett installed them. On his way to lunch after fixing the car, the belt broke. He then fixed that, and drove home as quickly and carefully as he could.

Luckily for him, I had a delicious dinner waiting and ready as soon as he got back.

I started with some roasted chickpeas, a new recipe that I modified from several on Pinterest.

Roasted Chickpeas

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• olive oil
• garlic powder
• salt

Directions:

1. Drain can of beans and dump onto cookie sheet. 
2. Broil at 525 degrees for 10 minutes.
3. Shake cookie sheet to move beans and broil for 5 more minutes.
4. Dump beans into bowl and toss with oil, garlic and salt. 
5. Place back into the oven and roast until brown.

 Next, I made some of my "original recipe" creamed corn.

Creamed Corn

Ingredients:

• Can of yellow corn
• 1 cup of milk 
• salt
• cinnamon

Directions:

1. Drain corn and dump into pan. 
2. Cook without water or oil for about 5 minutes so that the sugars in the corn can caramelize.
3. Turn heat to low, add 1 cup of milk.
4. Add salt and cinnamon to taste, let simmer.

For the main course, I had a garlic and peppercorn pork loin from Trader Joe's that I cooked in the crockpot with my secret marinade for 6 hours. (My marinade is so secret that I don't even know what it is, I just dump things in until I think it will taste good!)

Look at those eyes!

The chickpeas were so yummy! I'll definitely be making some for healthy snacks later on. I served the pork on pita bread toasted with oil and garlic salt, and I think I've found the bread I'm going to serve barbeque on forever. Everett is obsessed with that corn recipe. Obsessed. We later ruined the health benefits finished it off by going to the local snowcone stand, and got silly with sugar highs.

The (rather simplistic) moral of the story is that if lots of things go wrong, control what you can and make delicious food to make the day a good one.

Break's over, y'all!

I want to apologize to you! I have been overwhelmed with school and work, and have not been able to update this blog in WEEKS. I have recently left my job and will have more time to pursue the things I love in life, including writing.

I sit on our couch in the living room with my husband and our dear friend, watching River Monsters, and I am so happy. My "Hayride" candle is burning and there is a bushel of apples on the coffee table.We are listening to scratch recordings from other members of our band, which is reuniting at long last.

I have made the decision to pursue a living as a full-time musician. God is so crazy in the ways he works. I lost my desire to be a full-time musician after a year and a half of music school, and instead became a business major and ran full speed after a career in business. After several years of business school and a foray into the corporate world, the Lord has reawakened the desire in my heart to make a living as a musician. Here's the crazy part: All of that business training is exactly what I needed to learn in order to successfully make it as a musician.

I could not have thought of this plan myself. Who but the Lord could create such a crafty plan, working with the desires of my heart to train me to be exactly what he wanted?

I'll be back with some actual posts later this week, but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still here and I'm in it for the long haul!

--Caroline