Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (outer yellow skin of the lemon)
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Lemon Glaze:
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter (or spray with a non stick vegetable spray) the bottom and sides of a loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inch) (23 x 13 x 8 cm).

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until softened (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and milk (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 55 to 65 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring the 1/4 cup (50 grams) of sugar and the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

When the bread is done, remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Pierce the hot loaf all over with a wooden skewer or toothpick and then brush the top of the loaf with the hot lemon glaze. Cool the loaf in the pan for about 30 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack. This bread is best served on the day it is made.

Makes one loaf.

The original recipe can be found at www.joyofbaking.com

One of several tables at our wedding reception that my mom catered mostly by herself!

Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you thedesires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been looking at Psalm 37 in my Bible study time. This morning, the question was posed, “What does it mean to ‘delight yourself in the LORD?’” I thought I had that figured out. Simply put, it means to enjoy Him! That’s not wrong, but since the question was posed, I thought maybe I should try to look and see if there was something deeper that I might be missing. First I went to the Strong’s Dictionary on my phone. It told me that the word “delight” was “anog” in the Hebrew and that it meant “to be soft, delicate, dainty.” How in the world does being soft, delicate, or dainty tie in with enjoying something? I then went to Crosswalk and found further definitions that made a little more sense. “To be dainty of habit or pampered.” “To be happy about, take exquisite delight in.”

While that lined up with my original understanding of the verse, I was still curious if I was missing a little something more. The Treasury of David commentary gave a word picture.

 Every name, attribute, word, or deed of Jehovah, should be delightful to us, and in meditating thereon our soul should be as glad as is the epicure who feeds delicately with a profound relish for his dainties. (Emphasis mine)

This visual of a food lover carefully and purposefully creating and indulging in his delicacies brought the idea home for me. I thought of my mom, who is an amazing cook and baker. She seems to truly enjoy every moment of creating the foods she serves — even the grocery shopping. She travels over an hour to go to the grocery stores and farmers market that she has learned will have the exact items she wants in the best quality. She picks the choicest meat, produce, and herbs and spices. Then she puts them together in the way and the order that will bring out the best flavors and textures. The time is not tiring or wasteful to her. She truly enjoys doing all this. And her joy is complete when she serves the food to others and sees that they enjoy the fruits of her labor. But her labor isn’t best when devoured quickly. It’s best when the person takes time to enjoy the appearance and the aroma. It’s best when each morsel is chewed slowly so that the flavors fill the mouth and the excellent texture is noticed.

It is in this way that we delight in God! We are to carefully and purposefully enjoy Him,  enjoy laboring for His fruit, and enjoy His fruit in others. I think of times when I have done an act of service supposedly for Him, but in the end I was tired, glad it was done, and possibly thought of things that would have been a “better” use of my time and energy. And I know that I wasn’t delighting in God. If I had been, He would have given me the desires of my heart, joy and peace. It’s really what we all want — to be happy. To enjoy life. To not be stressed. We may desire stuff, relationships, and more, but truthfully we just want those things so that we might be happier or more at peace. Our solution is simple, delight in God! He will fill the desire for joy and peace, though it may not be the way we think we want or expect.

This begs the question, “how do we delight in God?” The verses leading into this verse instruct three things. Don’t fret, don’t be envious of wrongdoers, and trust God. The verse following instructs us to commit our way to Him and trust Him and He will do it. He will do what? Give us the desires of our heart! So we show our delight in Him

1. By not fretting (ouch, I fret over everything!). If we are fretting, then we aren’t trusting Him who is worthy to be trusted and able to do all things!
2. By not being envious of the wrongdoers. Do you ever wish you had the nice home, yard, or car that a neighbor who’s not a believer has? Read more in Psalm 37, you’ll discover that the wrongdoer, the wicked, the evil will be cut off. You’ll have an inheritance forever. We may or may not see abundance in our finances and stuff now, but we will have abundance in eternity! And as believers, we have all the riches of Christ! Why should we envy those whose only riches are are perishing?
3. By trusting God.

The life of religion lies much in a believing reliance on God, his favour, his providence, his promise, his grace, and a diligent care to serve him and our generation, according to his will. We must not think to trust in God and then live as we list. No; it is not trusting God, but tempting him, if we do not make conscience of our duty to him. Nor must we think to do good, and then to trust to ourselves, and our own righteousness and strength. No; we must both trust in the Lord and do good.                              — Matthew Henry Commentary

4. By committing our way to Him.

This post has gotten far longer than I intended, so I’ll leave with this final thought from The Treasury of David.

Think what he is, and what you are; and at once, both wonder and yield. And what else have you to delight in? what thing will you name that shall supply the place of GOD, or be to you in the stead of him? Moreover, who should delight in him but you — his friends, his sons, those of his own house?

Carnival Paradise

Thanks to my parents generous gift, we will be heading out on this boat soon! I’m sure we will be busy with all that the boat has to offer, but there’s nothing I’d rather do more on a vacation than just have quiet time to read. So just in case I do get time to read, I thought I’d look around for some books to load up on my nook. I was very happy to find that CBD has a bunch of titles available for free right now! My husband, knowing how I tend to be swallowed into my books, probably won’t be too thrilled to read this, but I’m excited! And free is always nice! Sorry Kindle users, these books aren’t compatible with those devices, but CBD does have a free iOS app and computer program if you want to check out any of these titles.

This is a short book and reads quickly. Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I don’t highly recommend it. This is purely due to my personal preference that when I read a Christian novel, it would be one that is saturated with God. What I mean by that is that I want to use my time well, so if I’m going to invest my time in a novel, I want it to draw me to a deeper relationship with God by challenging my beliefs (or lack of belief) by using Scripture and through conversations, ramblings, or hearing the thoughts of God at work. This story hardly mentioned God. There were references to a pastor, some churches, and religion. Towards the end there was finally a voiced prayer and a hymn was quoted a couple of times. There was no Scripture at all that I recall and Jesus was never actually named. However, the story was well written. I was engaged and hoping for the happy-ever-after ending. The best part of the book was the last ten-fifteen pages when the author described where the story came from (two real-life encounters), how God taught him and is using him, and how he has seen God at work. If you’re going to check out this book, make sure you read that part!

My little sister has fun taking photographs. I call her little, but she turns 18 in 5 days! Not so little anymore! Anyway, this picture makes me laugh every time I see it. She has many beautiful shots, too. I love her macro pictures! I’m sure I’ll share more here in the days to come!

With

Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

By Skye Jethani

Published by Thomas Nelson

With is a thoughtful look at what life looks like in five different ways of relating to God. Life from God, Life under God, Life over God, Life for God, and Life with God. Jethani seeks to help Christians understand why so few experience the life of freedom in Christ.

Skye does a good job illustrating each way of relating to God. The author brings out both examples and principles from the Bible to assist in explaining the problems, benefits, and results of each way of relating to God. However, I grew weary of looking at these. From the beginning of the book it is clear that “life with God” is the ideal relationship. Once I understood what the other ways of relating looked like and how they fell short of the abundant life in Christ, I wanted only to be more encouraged to know what a life with God looks like. The first half of the book could have been halved and the latter half doubled. Also, while the writing is clear, it lacks passion. I longed to get excited with Jethani about the life with God. Instead I felt a bit like I was reading a textbook. Overall the book was good, but I would only recommend it to those who enjoy classroom type reading.

I made a fun slideshow of the party, but it won’t embed on WordPress. You can access it here: http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/Kquinlan/Alex%205th%20Birthday/?action=view&current=eef792b6.pbw

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:1-2

This is one of the most quoted verses of the day and it is often misused. I have a story and admonition that go along with it, though.

Today the boys and I met a friend at Chick-fil-A. Typically, the boys do well in the playplace, but any time that Ryan will be interacting with strangers I have to hold my breath a little.

Ryan, for the most part seems “normal.” However, shortly after he turned three, I began to suspect that something wasn’t quite right. Few people agreed with me. Most thought I was a paranoid first-time mom. But by that time I had coached hundreds of preschoolers in gymnastics, run a church nursery for almost 2 years, and several different ages of Sunday school classes. I had a pretty good idea of what “normal” should be — even for boys. And I could see that in certain areas Ryan didn’t fit. The year that he was eligible for free pre-Kindergarten at the local Christian school, we took advantage of the opportunity. It enabled us to have some objective outside input from his teacher. She agreed that testing to help understand his behavior would be good and got him into the special services program at the school. I will forever be grateful for the test that was done and the wonderful way Mrs. Bailey helped explain Ryan’s difficulties. She was able to tell us that he is definitely a “gifted” child. What does “gifted” mean? I’m sure that there are some great websites that explain more in-depth, but in a nutshell, he’s super smart intellectually, but socially awkward. Thankfully, he’s so close to “normal” that few people know or suspect anything. But the unfortunate difficulty of that is that those who don’t know have little patience for him. Or me. And we sometimes face brutal judgment or lack of understanding. But I’m truly grateful that God is using this to mold our entire family. And perhaps others around us.

While there today, a boy of about four joined my boys in the playplace. His mom and grandmother sat on a different side of the window watching from outside. Though having a conversation I was trying to keep an eye on what they were doing. However, I missed the game that they began playing — “The Stinky Shoe Game.” Apparently, Ryan made up this game while in the playplace. (Totally a boy thing!!!) And part of the game was to try to get the other person to smell the stinky shoe. Suddenly the grandmother jumped up, went in the playplace and began to speak a bit harshly. Unsure of what the boys’ roles in the trouble was, I stepped in, corrected what I did see, then asked if they were playing kindly. The grandmother didn’t give my kids a chance to respond. She just snapped at me about him putting his shoe in the little boy’s face. I, of course, made Ryan apologize, then let them go back to playing. And I apologized to her. End of story.

Well, not really. The grandmother returned to her seat with mom. She kept her hawk-eye carefully trained on the activity in the playplace and occasionally tossed disgusted looks my way. They finally decided that they didn’t like the play (which had now turned to Ryan being a monster) and left, the grandmother making a bit of a rucus as they went.

I’ve finally learned that I will often be embarrassed by something Ryan says or does when we go out. The occasions are growing far less frequent as he grows older and we continue to try to teach him social graces in every moment of every day. Three or four years ago I would have been embarrassed, angry, and depressed. I would have spent the day crying, wondering why I was such a terrible mom and if I would ever figure out how to teach my son to behave. Wow! The places God has brought me! He’s shown me that this kind of response is completely born of pride and the desire for man’s approval. He’s taught me that these are great teaching moments, for all involved. And He granted me the grace to be able to see that the problem isn’t mine or Ryan’s. That lady responded the way she did from her own pride. She quickly cast judgment on Ryan and me without looking for any insight. She didn’t care to have compassion or the wisdom to teach her grandchild how to handle that kind of situation well. If she had asked a question or two, she might have found out that they were playing a game. She might have asked if that was a nice game to play. She could have told her grandson that the proper thing to do would have been to say, “No thank you. I don’t want to play that game.” Instead she showed disgust for God’s precious sheep. (Of course, I have no idea if she knows her Creator, but the result is still the same.) And she taught her grandson that instead of showing people compassion, we should cast judgment, scorn them, and (probably, I have no evidence except human nature) slander them later.

I am incredibly grateful that God is knitting in me confidence in what He is doing in and through my “gifted” son. He is my GOOD Father who is giving me good things though they may sometimes hurt. I have not written this to receive sympathy or pity. I do not wish anyone to give my son “special” treatment. I prefer that he learn to handle the world as it is and I love that God is allowing me to help in that in nearly every moment of every day. I write this so that others will be slower to cast quick judgment as the lady today did. I have been that lady. As I said earlier, I have worked with hundreds of kids in gymnastics. There were times that I cast judgment on the parents as not doing their job only to later find out a child was minorly autistic or there was trauma in the home. Sometimes the judgment may have been accurate, but it wasn’t my place. In the above Scripture Jesus goes on to say,

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5

At the end, Jesus does give a place for believers to judge other believers — when they have dealt first with their own sin. When my judgment (or anyone else’s) comes from my pride, then it comes from my sin. I don’t believe God is punishing me for casting judgment on those poor parents, but I find it interesting that He says in verse 2, “with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged.” Exactly what I did to those parents at times is what I now experience. So be careful of casting judgment.

I mostly wanted to tell my story and how God used it to remind me of this Scripture. My husband did a more in-depth discussion of the meaning of these verses and whether we should speak up. You can read it here.