Featured on Flowerdust.net

In April my husband turned me onto Anne Jackson’s blog, Flowerdust.  I instantly fell in love with her.  She is a phenomenal woman and has a passion for God and people.  She inspires me as a speaker, writer, etc.  Brad Ruggles made over her site and it premiered tonight.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that my submission for Permission To Speak Freely was featured on he scrolling marquee.  Thank you Anne.  You touch many lives.

I’m NOT Starving

Yesterday, for the second day in a row, my wonderful husband worked a 12 hour shift. This isn’t normal for him but the pastor of the church he works at is on a deadline to get his latest book to print and Shawn needed to get some time with him for the graphic design part. I’ve been trying to eat better and start losing weight again. Needless to say by 5:30/6:00 I was really hungry. I went to get a small snack to ward off the pangs of hunger and started to say, “I’m so starving!” I immediately stopped myself. I’m not starving. I’m just really hungry.

So I’m making an effort to weed “I’m starving” out of my vocabulary. It isn’t a healthy statement for me because I really am not starving. Thousands of people in desperate poverty are, I’m not.

A Foot Ahead

I found out today that I have a longitudinal peroneal tendon tear in my left foot.  That means that instead of being torn like if you pull a rope it would snap in two, with my condition the strands of the tendon separate from the other strands.  I’ve been having pain since the end of June.  My doctor put me in a air cast boot and my pain went away and I weaned off the boot.  A few weeks ago I started having pain again and went back to the doctor.  The reason that it hasn’t healed is because I have tendinosis, meaning that the injury is not becoming inflamed and igniting healing.

The method of treatment is to make a small incision in the area of the foot that is injured and use a probe to send radio waves to “kick start” inflammation and begin the healing process.  I would have to be off of it for three weeks and then begin to be able to walk on it again in the boot.  It isn’t something I would need to do right away, giving Shawn and I time to pray about what we want to do.  Basically it comes down to how long I want to play the boot game.  I can go out of the boot and go back in when I have pain.

Please pray that Shawn and I would have wisdom in what we should do.

India On My Heart and Mind

The end of April Shawn and I sponsored a little girl in India.  It is something we’d talked about doing, but never actually took the steps until we read the blog postings by the Compassion Bloggers that were in India at that time.  I prayed that God would give us the girl that he wanted for us to sponsor.  We chose Nikita.  A beautiful nine year old girl.

Since that time we have become interested in the goings on of this very large nation.  India covers 1,269,210 square miles.  The estimated population for 2009 is 1,198,003,000.  When most of us think of India we think of Bollywood or those hour long conversations with a call center for our computer’s hardware or software OEM.  We don’t generally think about the residents that make up the rest of the country.  According to The World Bank, India has the highest concentration of poor people in he world.  According to The World Bank 42% of India’s population lives on $1.25 or less a day (http://xrl.in/34sy).  That means that at a population of 1,198,003,000 approximately 50,316,126 people live on what we pay for a soda at a fast food joint.  India also has a higher malnutrition rate of than any other country in the world!!

So, I’ve tried to think of India in this way.  Forgetting the call centers and the movie musicals and focusing on that 42%.  God has really been laying on my heart to pray for India when I pray for Nikita.  This is her home for the next dozen years at least.  I want it to be a place that cares for it’s people.  That seeks the welfare of all it’s population not just those who are in a caste that they feel deserves their respect and time.  Through prayer I know that God can change a nation.

Lovely Nikita

Statistics taken from here, please visit the site for more detailed citations.

Remembering on 9/11

It was about a year and a half ago that some changes happened in my heart and life as well as Shawn’s. We started to see things differently.

For me it all started one night on my computer. At that time I was on MySpace and was browsing my friends pages. I started looking on Hillsong United’s page and their different friends. My heart broke. Here were people who are fighting daily for the poverty stricken, for those who are enslaved for sex trade, etc. And what was I doing? Sitting at home on my computer, in a nice home, living a cushy lifestyle.

Tonight I made a comment to Shawn about 9/11. He had a profound observation. He said that his mindset has changed regarding it. I asked in what way, and he said, “We memorialize and remember 3,000 people who died that day, but we do nothing to remember the 25,000 children die in poverty everyday because the common person and the government doesn’t care because they are just the least of these.” His observation caused me to stop and think. I recently heard a pastor say that we can’t have the gospel and not fight for social justice. Part of the Gospel is fighting for those who are down trodden, who can’t help themselves. I want to be someone who fights for these people. Who doesn’t forget the thousands upon thousands of people who die every day simple because they can’t get fresh water or medicine or mosquito nets.

Christmas

I am wanting to do a blog series on Christmas the month before Christmas.  I would like to feature individuals and/or families that have taken steps to make Christmas less commercial and more about Jesus and giving to those less fortunate.

If you or someone you know has taken these steps please contact me or have them contact me at missiovitam@gmail.com.

I am looking to feature at least 2-3 stories per week.

Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies (aka Yum)

I found a new cooking blog (Smitten Kitchen) a couple weeks ago and found a whole host of new recipes to try.  This was the first one to hit the oven.

Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

Kitchen Aid Action Shot

Accidently spilt oats all over the counter while measuring them out. Sure hope real recipe blogs do stuff like this.

Ghiradelli - My favorite

"Secret" Ingredient. The cookies are sprinkled with coarse Kosher Salt before baking. This sends them over the edge on the yum scale.

The Sous Chef. Don't worry this Sous Chef had no paw in the prep or baking of these cookies.

The Kitchen Cleaner. Very apt in cleaning any crumbs from the kitchen floor.

These cookies are the bomb

Housing Contentment

I think that if I’ve ever had a “dream house” at the time, and if I’m honest even today, this house was it.  Shawn and I fell in love with it from the first time we saw it.  We sat in the living room and imagined how we were going to pain and where we’d hang our art.  We LOVED this house.  So we put money down to have it built.

Then, we started to pray.  The main reason for putting the money down first then praying was this was the last of this model they were building and if we wanted it we had to put money down.  So we did.  Our God was gracious and we were willing to listen to His voice.  We decided that we weren’t supposed to buy the house.  There were two factors.  1.  While we could “afford” it, it would have stretched us and we would have had little breathing room financially, and 2.  It was an hour drive each way to and from town.  I’m sure that if we could have comfortably afforded the house the 1 hour drive may not have been so heavy a situation.

As I look back now I’m so glad that we listened to God.  When we were buying the house the housing market was at the top of it’s boom.  A couple short years later it’s at the lowest it has been in years.  We probably would either be foreclosing or having to short sale the house today.

I saw this picture today and the others we took when we toured the house.  It sparked one of those “ohhh” responses.  We still love the house we’re in that we bought before the boom hit and we can afford.  And in the recent months we feel that God is calling us to actually down size rather than having a big fancy house.  We simply want to hear and heed His voice and be content in all that He calls us to.

Not Feeling the Love

For most of my life I’ve had self-esteem issues.  I don’t use that phrase lightly or with any kind of ego.  I’m not desiring to look upon myself more than I should.  I was the kid in school (kindergarten through about sixth) that had no friends.  Sure at times I did but that was probably due to some parent telling their child to be friends with me.  This would include the occasional playing at someone’s house or playing on the play ground, but most of the time I was worse than the odd man out.

Because of this I learned to fend for myself.  I became accustomed to being by myself and preferring to be.  I became extremely independent (on top of being a first born).  But I also became critical of those who say they’re my friends.  I struggle very deeply in trusting that people like me and want to be my friend rather than just acting like they do.  This obviously strains relationships on my end.  It is difficult when you don’t feel loved let alone liked.  It isn’t fair to your friends when you are second guessing if the time they are investing in you is real or if it is something they feel they are supposed to do.

I am unsure if I’ll ever get over this hurdle.  I can only pray that God would only bring people into my life that really do enjoy my friendship.

Hungry Girl’s Gooey Cinnamon Rolls

I recently obtained Hungry Girl’s 200 Under 200 cookbook.  I’ve made my first recipe from it.  Gooey Cinnamon Rolls.  Mmmm

Brown Sugar. Splenda. Cinnamon.  Butter.  Mmmm

Unfortunately they didn’t turn out as pretty as Hungry Girl’s. But they were still tasty.