Milczewsky Mama

Fall Family Feast Recipes (by popular demand)

2011-10-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Rather than post these for everyone on Facebook, I thought I'd do it here.
Credit for the Rainbow Roasted Pepper Soup goes to Allrecipes.com member Leslie.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/rainbow-roasted-pepper-soup/detail.aspx
You can find that recipe at the link above.

Credit for the Autumn Potato Casserole goes to Allrecipes.com member Karen Berlecamp for her Baked Potato Casserole, which I adapted.

Autumn Potato Casserole
Recipe as shown makes 10 servings. Now I wish I had made more because there were basically no leftovers.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds red potatoes, cooked and cubed (I added a couple of brown ones I had on hand to supplement)
1/2 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise*
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons minced chives
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Fry bacon until crisp. Remove from grease and blot before crumbling, saving grease for onions.
Fry onions in the bacon grease(my hubby hates undercooked onions, so when I use them, I try to pre-cook them first).
When onions are cooked, remove from grease with large spoon and put in bowl with potatoes.(This step was important, because the grease gives a little more moisture, and the potatoes are more the consistency of baked potatoes than scalloped anyway.)
In a large bowl, combine potatoes, onions, and bacon.
In another bowl, combine the remaining ingredients; add to potato mixture and toss gently to coat.
Transfer to a greased 9 X 13 glass baking dish.
Bake, uncovered, at 325 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned

Green Beans with Bacon
(My own method of spiffing up green beans. We're German, so we like all things bacon-y.Sometimes I add toasted almonds too.)

Ingredients:
2 lbs.fresh or frozen whole green beans (I couldn't find decent fresh, so I used whole frozen and they were fine)
1/4 lb bacon (fried crisp-tender, you want it cooked but a little chewy)
Butter
Salt and Pepper

Boil beans until crisp tender.
Toss beans with a little butter.
Crumble bacon and toss with beans.
Salt and pepper to taste.

I may add diced red apples next time...

Credit for the Maple Glazed Spareribs goes to Gooseberry Patch Holidays at Home Cookbook
Recipe by Sandra Nichols

Here is the basic recipe but I tripled it and modified it slightly.

Ingredients:
3 lbs pork spareribs cut into serving size pieces
1 cup of maple syrup (I used the real stuff, but it was expensive, don't know how pancake syrup would go)
3 T. orange juice concentrate
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. curry powder
1 clove of garlic crushed
3 T. catsup
1 T. toasted sesame seed (I didn't use these and we didn't miss them)

Place ribs meaty side up on a rack in a roasting pan (I boiled mine in a pot of water with onion salt instead until the meat pulled away from the bone.)
Mix remaining ingredients in a pot except sesame seeds. Bring to boil over medium heat, reduce to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When ribs have cooked, remove from rack and drain. Coat them with the sauce and place into roasting pan (no rack, and I always spray the pan with cooking spray first to make cleanup easier.)
Bake ribs uncovered for 25-30 minutes basting with sauce occasionally. Remove from sauce and put on platter. You can serve the sauce as a gravy if you like.

If using sesame seeds, toast them and sprinkle on the ribs just before serving.

Harvest Apple Salad

Dressing:
2 T. sugar
2 T. green onions diced
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup orange juice
juice from 1 lemon

1 red delicious apple cored and diced
1 bag of field greens with spinach

Mix dressing ingredients and toss 2-3 T. with salad greens and apples in a bowl.
Save remaining dressing to serve on the side if needed.

This salad was really refreshing and simple!

Pumpkin Pies:

No secrets here, I used 2 Pillsbury pie crusts, and 1 can of Libby's pumpkin, and followed the instructions on the can exactly. Juergen hates nutmeg in his pie, and this recipe only called for ginger, cloves, and cinnamon as seasonings.Made 2 9" pies which I served with canned whipped cream because it was easy and I was exhausted!

Country Apple Dumplings
I haven't tried this yet because I had made way too much pumpkin pie, but I have the ingredients and the fact that it has garnered over 1300 reviews on Allrecipes.com makes it intriguing.
Think I'll try it for Halloween night. Recipe makes 16 servings.

Ingredients:

2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
2 (10 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle Mountain Dew ™

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Cut each apple into 8 wedges and set aside.
Separate the crescent roll dough into triangles.
Roll each apple wedge in crescent roll dough starting at the smallest end.
Pinch to seal and place in the baking dish.
Melt butter in a small saucepan and stir in the sugar and cinnamon.
Pour over the apple dumplings.
Pour Mountain Dew™ over the dumplings.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

There you have it!

A Chill in the Air?

2011-10-23T17:15:00.002-07:00

At the beginning of the autumn season I have a recurrent internal conflict that I deal with as I see the Halloween displays appear in most of the merchants and businesses I frequent. On the one hand, I love the coziness of fall with its rich colors and fragrances of spice, cinnamon, apple, and pumpkin. Having lived in the Midwest and on the East Coast as a child, I still associate these aromas with the musty smell of crunchy fallen leaves, and the crisp chill of pre-winter nights. Unfortunately here in Southern California, although the fall retail displays begin in earnest in mid-September, we have this strange disconnect from the majority of the country’s fall experience due to the heat waves and Santa Ana wind conditions that descend upon us in October.

Sure, fall likes to tease us a little by dangling the hope that we will have cooler weather sooner, rather than later. For example, we had a taste of chilliness at the beginning of the month, only to have it yanked away and replaced with triple digit temperatures. Of course, because it is autumn even here in Orange County, that means that the clothing retailers have all sorts of seasonally appropriate, (albeit weather inappropriate) clothing for sale, which makes me sad because I love sweaters, shawls, hats, gloves, scarves and boots.

And I love decorating my house with pumpkins, and candles, and fake leaves…except when my pumpkin, carefully selected for just the right kind of gnarled stem at Trader Joes’ two weeks ago, has turned into some sort of spongiform sitting in a pool of pumpkin water, and I can’t light my candles, or cook all those wonderful soups, stews, and roasts I’m seeing on magazine covers because it’s too hot outside, and our electric bill is high enough already without adding the cost of air conditioning.

As much as I love creating a warm (not difficult in the past few weeks), autumnal environment in my house, I struggle with going down the Halloween aisles at Michaels’, or Target. A few weeks ago, I had a slightly surreal encounter with a fellow shopper when I was at Michael’s. As I maneuvered my cart through an aisle beset with spider webs, rats, ghosts, witches, monsters, and sundry other fiendish accessories, I narrowly escaped collision with an oncoming cart piloted by a distracted mother who had chosen to occupy her toddler daughter with a replica of a bloody severed limb. Aghast, I was reminded of the darker side of Halloween, and by extension, fall, that has caused and still does cause me great discomfort, hence: “the other hand” of this discussion.

Throughout my life, I have found myself moving along a spectrum of fear, intrigue, repulsion, and now introspection when it comes to Halloween and the notion of spookiness in general.

As a child, I would watch Saturday afternoon Creature Feature horror movies with my mom and some of my neighborhood friends. I remember being terrified at the thought of something in my closet, or under my bed, to the extent that when I was sent up to bed, I would creep up the stairs to my room, and literally dash across the landing, launching myself onto my bed before whatever was waiting to get me could have the opportunity to do so. Of course, I would willingly put myself through the same scenario each week of intrigue with, and terror of, the unknown.

As a middle school and high school student, I screamed my way through many a Campus Life haunted house attraction at Halloween, along with several visits to Knott’s Scary Farm. I am certain I am one cause of deafness in some of those workers, along with some broken finger bones from when I stomped on hands that were grabbing my ankles. I naively dabbled in the occult through a Ouija board with my best friend, walking a tense line between my faith and my curiosity, until I had an encounter that caused enough discomfort to cause me to abandon that pursuit. And having given the final summer of my high school years to reading every Stephen King novel I could get my hands on and then some, I came to the final realization that the chills and thrills the horror genre afforded were not worth the distress and anxiety I felt upon retiring to my bed at night.

As an adult, I resolved to avoid all things spooky, to the extent that when my children were born I even changed all references to witches in stories to be “wicked persons”. Halloween at our house was Harvest, with all spooky elements removed, and only the cozy and happy remaining. Trick or Treating for my children was mostly innocuous, as were the costumes I made for them: stereotypical heroes, princesses, and historical types, and the occasional TV character. We carefully protected our kids from Halloween’s more disturbing images by restricting where they trick or treated (relatives and immediate neighbors who didn’t have really spooky displays), and opting for our church’s Fall Festival over Halloween parties. We even gave out tracts some years, and did a mini-Harvest festival in our front yard as a wholesome alternative experience for those who trick-or-treated to our house.

I read about the dark side of Halloween with its pagan origins, and watched a Chuck Smith exposé video, vowing to have nothing to do with occultism. Meanwhile, I also read Christian suspense stories crafted by Frank Peretti, certain that through their exposé of spiritual warfare I was equipping myself, rather than indulging my old curiosity of the unknown. I wisely avoided slasher/horror films, and discovered that I even had trouble with viewing many suspense type films, although they were not supernatural in content, due to the fear and stress they provoked within me.

As my children got older however, Hitchcock movies, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, and other assorted tales from the thriller genre found an audience in the young adults in my family, much to my initial discomfort. Thankfully though, my kids have at least not been very interested in the slasher type of films that bludgeon you on the head with gore and violence. Instead, they are more into the psychological thriller type of story – the seemingly innocuous tale that begins with the hint of something not quite right, as in Hitchcock’s masterpiece of suspense, The Birds, Washington Irving’s timeless Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or Poe’s The Raven. As I have struggled with my conflicting intrigue with and distaste for those spooky, thrilling tales, I have been forced into further introspection.

Why is it that we are drawn to imagery and experiences that send chills down our spines? What is it about Alfred Hitchcock, Tim Burton, or Stephen King that lures us in despite our reservations? And, how can a simple silhouette of a tree, a cat, or a raven create that “all is not well” sort of feeling when added to a simple fall table decoration?

After all, trees, cats, and ravens are all God’s creations. And a silhouette is a common art form that doesn’t usually promote uneasiness. So why would a silhouette of a tree, cat, or raven produce such sentiments? And would they at any other time of the year? Or is it merely the association with images conjured through literature and film, or Halloween that creates a spooky atmosphere.

There is something somehow appealing about the idea of sitting in a candlelit room decorated with fall leaves, pumpkins, (and ravens) and enjoying sweet and spicy baked apples with family and friends while listening to one of them read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow aloud. Now, I don’t plan on crossing the Halloween aisle to the severed limbs section anytime soon, but I find that the slight tinge of eeriness lent by my raven silhouettes adds a little dimension to my fall decorations. They seem to say “What’s the matter? We’re just birds. Nothing wrong here…or is there?”

It seems that almost a universal resonation is felt with the unnatural and the spooky, experienced by some through severed limbs and slasher films, and others through simple bird silhouettes. And the question I have struggled with remains. Why are we drawn to such things? Is there something wrong with creating an eerie atmosphere in literature, film, or in a living room? Is reading Washington Irving or Poe as a family an innocuous activity on a warm (or hopefully cool) autumn evening, or is it a glorification of darkness? What is your opinion?

This year, I’ll keep my ravens. I find them somewhat classy, and they will be replaced by pilgrims in a week or so anyway. Next year, I’ll re-evaluate and go from there.

Lessons Learned

2009-11-08T07:53:00.001-08:00

I love that God speaks to me through songs. Here is one song that has really been impressed upon my heart lately, and has been helping me discover truth:

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

Words by William Cowper
Recorded by Jeremy Riddle

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain,
in His own time,
and His own way...

In the first verse, I love the imagery of the grandeur and power of God planting his footsteps in the sea and riding upon the storm. Both of these images speak to me of things that appear out of control and at times a bit frightening. I’ve always been pretty frightened of the ocean, and I much prefer viewing it from a safe distance. There is such power there, and a myriad of unknown dangers. Of course, anyone who has witnessed the drama of a stormy sky can visualize the great forces of nature there as well. Neither of these things can be controlled by man, yet God is definitely master over them.

In my own life, I need to remember this truth. When circumstances seem completely out of control, and I am afraid, I need to remember that there are no circumstances that are out of God’s control, no matter how big and destructive they appear to be.

Verse 2 describes how God treasures up his bright designs deep in unfathomable mines.

So He stores these up in areas that are inaccessible until it is his purpose to bring the treasure out. It is good that the designs are bright rather than dark or ominous, even though some seasons and trials can feel oh, so dark. It reminds me of the scripture in Is. 55:8 ‘“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.’ God has His own thoughts and purposes that are unfathomable to us at times. There are times that I just don’t understand what God is allowing to happen in my life. This is when I have to remember that He is God and He has sovereign purposes to fulfill. I don’t see the big picture, but He does.

Here the chorus really speaks volumes:

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break, in blessings on your head.”

I can’t even begin to think of all the times when I have surveyed the horizon of my life and been met with the ominous sight of looming, dark clouds that have provoked at the least, apprehension, and more commonly, outright distress. When scripture tells us in Phil. 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God,” I think we are looking at the same principle. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed with the fearsome potential that those dark, stormy clouds represent, but I wonder if I have been viewing it wrongly all this time? True, storms can bring damage, and we are not able to control them. All we can do is brace ourselves and wait them out. But in reality, most storms bring the blessing of much needed rain; catastrophic storms are more the exception than the rule.

I take comfort in the words of this chorus because they ring true. Many times the circumstances that I dread, while appearing to bring devastation, in reality, usher in great blessing.

The song goes on to say: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.”

I have been grappling with the concept of how God works His will in our lives, and how that reconciles with our free will. I have been so angry over a choice that someone made which impacted my daughter (at the time, I thought negatively), and I was convinced that it was against God’s will. But there was no recourse, no opportunity for reconciliation. All choice in the matter was taken away from her, and it seemed truly unfair and ungodly. There was nothing left to do besides cry out to God for His mercy and comfort for her. Trusting Him for His grace comes easily when there is nowhere else to go or nothing else to do, and I think He sometimes has to strip us down to the place of zero options before we are able to submit to His will. In this case, what was necessary for Christina’s growth and future blessing was for God to strip away all choices from her. What was an unexpected and seemingly devastating storm in her life actually was the mechanism God was using to bring great blessing to her.

Through this season, I have also been thinking of the process of prayer, and how God answers it. I have been praying that He would place right desires in my heart and in the hearts of those dear to me: ones that will conform us more and more to His will. I am certain that no matter what happens in my life and the lives of those I care about, the best place to be is in the center of God’s will, even if that is the eye of the storm. And truthfully, it feels like that sometimes.

These next words from the song speak of the perfection of God’s timing: “His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour; the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.”

I’m not sure if this is saying that trying to partake of His purpose too early will bring bitterness, or if it is saying that what may seem bitter early in the development of His purpose for us, when fully ripe, will be beautiful and sweet. I can see both interpretations, and what I am observing now seems to be more of the second interpretation. You don’t get the beautiful flower without maturing through the bud.

We have a lot of roses in our yard, and I have noticed that they have very different rates of maturation. I can cut a tightly closed bud of one variety of rose and put it into a vase, and within a day, it will be fully open, yielding a heady fragrance. Another variety will stay compactly closed for several days, opening lazily before yielding the full extent of its beauty. The error I fall into when I am trying to understand the Lord’s purpose and timing in specific circumstances, especially those that that seem so unreasonably unfair, is that I tend to expect God to follow a set formula or time-table for answering my prayers. It’s like when you know that someone will take a couple of days to respond to your emails as a rule, so you don’t expect to hear back from them right away. I have had many times when I have had to doggedly persist in prayer (a very biblical thing, as evidenced by Jesus’ story of the persistent widow), and really that has been the pattern for how God has worked in my life. I am used to having to persist in prayer over a long time. Sometimes, I grow frustrated as I try to seek out the reason for the situation, or the apparent delay in God’s answers. Most of the time, I hunker down and resign myself to waiting for the Lord to act, and try to be content to trust Him.

What caught me off guard these past few weeks has been how quickly the answers to my prayers have come lately, and the form they have taken. When I consider the nature of my prayers of the past 2-3 months, I am filled with awe at how God has answered them so wondrously in the fullness of time, and yet, why should I be surprised at what the Lord has done, or even the timing of it? Why would He not answer such prayers? He is teaching me to not only ask, but to fully expect the blessing of His answer and provision.

This past year has been somewhat of a roller coaster of emotion, with the stresses of Christina’s senior activities, final shows, graduation events, and preparation for college. The exhilaration of Anna’s and Josh’s wedding was immediately followed by the sadness of the ending of a couple of important relationships, and Jason’s departure for grad school in Canada. A depressing fog that seemed like it would blanket our family for the next semester suddenly and quite unexpectedly dissipated however, and initially, I struggled with understanding how this could be, and feared that this was just a lull in the storm.

“Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain, in His own time, in His own way…”

Looking back on the confusion and frustration of some of the events of this summer and fall, and wondering why things happened the way they did, I realize now that what seemed like a devastating storm that was swirling out of control was really the hand of the Lord as He prepared a way for even greater blessing. I am ready to embrace that blessing, and instead of shrinking back from the rain, will lift my face and rejoice in the fullness of His timing for all of us. He is good, and His timing and purposes are indeed perfect. In the future, when I scan my horizon and see those dark clouds, I hope I will take fresh courage rather than fear and dread, knowing that the clouds are big with mercy and will break with blessings... from our God who does all things well!

The Time for Singing has Come… an Update to My Post from July.

2009-09-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

For those who have been praying for us, I just wanted to give a brief update. As I re-read my post from the end of July, I am truly blessed by God’s faithfulness in this past season for my family. Life is a cycle of seasons. My favorite season of the year has always been autumn. I think this stems from spending a chunk of my childhood in a region of the country that experiences the phenomenon of fall foliage. I absolutely adore fall. I love the rich vibrant colors, the earthy smell of dried leaves as they crunch underfoot, and the shortening hours of daylight. I welcome the excuse of chilly days to cook hearty soups and stews, and to imbue my house with candlelight. At this time of year, my house usually looks as if fall has exploded in it. I’m not certain if that will be the case this year, since the major instigators of the transformation are not around to encourage it as much, but I have already felt the urge stirring within to begin gathering pumpkins, and gourds, apples and acorns. If the weather would cooperate a bit more with the process, I might actually venture up to the garage rafters to retrieve my decorations.

It is this contemplation of the passage of seasons, and the reminder of God’s ever-present faithfulness that caused me to revisit my previous blog post. In July, as I was praying for my daughter who was grieving the loss of a long term relationship, the Lord had directed me to Psalm126:5, “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” This scripture had prompted some contemplation of the nature of seeds and sowing, in addition to giving comfort and encouragement that this was indeed a season, and that blessing would come from heartache. You can read that blog entry “Dead or Alive” for more specifics of how the Lord encouraged us during that time.

Two months have passed, and healing has begun. The Lord has provided my daughter with wonderfully supportive companions as she has begun her time at Biola. They have been a channel of God’s compassion to her, and have brought laughter back in a time of tears. They have reminded her of who she is, and the gifting that God has placed in her, and that there are kindred spirits out there for her. She is in a far better place emotionally than she has been in quite a while, and is excelling in her studies. I am grateful for this, for these special friends, and for the prayers of those who have been there for her during this season of her life.

Yesterday, my husband pointed a plant out to me in our garden. It is growing along our wall with our climbing roses and is one which I thought no longer lived in our yard, because there was no sign of it where it had once been growing. It is my old friend, the Love in a Puff. It still resides here; it just has sprung up in a new location. This morning, the Lord reminded me of another scripture with these words: “The time of singing has come…” This scripture from Song of Solomon chapter 2 (NKJV) has a whole lot more to it that may one day be applicable to this situation, but the only words from it which I felt the Lord speak specifically to me right now were these. As I considered the words and what the Lord was sharing with me through them, I was reminded of the previous verse about reaping with songs of joy. I think He is saying that the time of sowing in tears is over. It’s interesting that this word comes now as we are entering the fall season, the season of harvest or reaping.

This past week, there has been singing in our home :), and I am looking forward to more singing still as we enter fully into the harvest season. Gatherings of family and friends await, with warmth, food and fellowship. After this comes Christmas, and our empty nest will again be full for a time. I know the Lord has good gifts prepared for us in the New Year, and as I recall the events that have occurred in our lives since the ending of last year, I am amazed. Spring will be upon us in a few short months with its promise of reawakening secret gardens which must for now, patiently await the warmth of spring to make them grow. The Lord is good!

Identity Crisis?

2009-08-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

I am staring at the imminent approach of an empty nest.

Fortunately, I have had some time to become accustomed to the idea. Jason moved out last year, and will leave for grad school in Toronto at the end of this month, Anna and Josh have been married for a month now, and in two weeks, Christina will move onto the Biola Campus, followed by Ben a week later. Thankfully, we get to see Anna and Josh a couple times a week for laundry or dinner, and I expect Christina and Ben to be home for most weekends. Jason will be home for Christmas break, and having had both Anna and Jason spend semesters abroad, it doesn’t feel like that will be too dreadfully long of a time, although I will definitely miss him.

So, what does all this shifting of bodies mean for me? Well, I’ve been thinking about this, among some other things which have been weighing heavy on my heart. For the past 24 years, my life has been focused, for better or worse, on my kids. With all of them moving outward and onward, I am now faced with the prospect of a very quiet (and maybe somewhat less chaotic) household and the opportunity to reacquaint myself with Juergen on a level that we haven’t had in almost a quarter of a century, as husband and wife apart from daily parental duties. These are the plusses.

As I’ve been working through this transitional time, I also have been considering how much my personal identity has been tied to my relationships. I realize that my identity as Anna’s mother does not cease just because she no longer lives under our roof. But things are changing as circumstances cause relationships to be redefined. This is reality; I have seen it lived out repeatedly not only in my own life, but also now in Christina’s as she adjusts to the loss of a relationship that had impacted (and still does) her identity. I wonder how much we should allow relationships to shape our personal identity, and how much control we have over it anyway?

Whenever I am trying to understand a concept, I try to define terms early on, so here are some definitions from the lovely people of Encarta:

IDENTITY: The set of characteristics that somebody recognizes as belonging uniquely to himself or herself and constituting his or her individual personality for life.

CRISIS: a situation or period in which things are very uncertain, difficult, or painful, especially a time when action must be taken to avoid complete disaster or breakdown, a time when something very important for the future happens or is decided.

RELATIONSHIP: behavior or feelings toward somebody else. The connection between two or more people or groups and their involvement with one another, especially as regards the way they behave toward and feel about one another.

As I have been considering these terms, it seems to me that even at best, relationships between people are transitory things. When they are based solely on feelings, which are variable, relationships oftentimes change. Sometimes those changes are for the best, sometimes, not. But should they play such a major role in determining our identity? Should our identity be something that changes? According to the definition of identity, it seems it should not. So when we find ourselves facing circumstances which seem to shake us to the deepest level, causing us to see ourselves as someone different than who we were, could that be a crisis of identity? It appears so, if we look at the definition of crisis.

While relationships are definitely important, they are based upon feelings and upon behaviors between people and as such are subject to change. The only relationship that we can truly count on is the one we have with our compassionate, eternal, and unchanging God. Because relationship with God is based on His truth, not our feelings or behaviors, it provides the constancy necessary for establishing our identity. If our identity can be shaped by relationships, shouldn’t it be most strongly affected by our relationship with God?

So rather than finding my purpose in life solely in being a wife, or mother, teacher, someone’s friend or any other thing that I might use to define myself, I should find my identity primarily in Christ and what His word says about me:

Who I Am In Christ (from Freedom in Christ Ministries)
I am accepted...
John 1:12
I am God's child.
John 15:15
As a disciple, I am a friend of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1
I have been justified.
1 Corinthians 6:17
I am united with the Lord, and I am one with Him in spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.
1 Corinthians 12:27
I am a member of Christ's body.
Ephesians 1:3-8
I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.
Colossians 1:13-14
I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.
Colossians 2:9-10
I am complete in Christ.
Hebrews 4:14-16
I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ.

I am secure...
Romans 8:1-2
I am free from condemnation.
Romans 8:28
I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances.
Romans 8:31-39
I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
I have been established, anointed and sealed by God.
Colossians 3:1-4
I am hidden with Christ in God.
Philippians 1:6
I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me.
Philippians 3:20
I am a citizen of heaven.
2 Timothy 1:7
I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.
1 John 5:18
I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me.

I am significant...
John 15:5
I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life.
John 15:16
I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 3:16
I am God's temple.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
I am a minister of reconciliation for God.
Ephesians 2:6
I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.
Ephesians 2:10
I am God's workmanship.
Ephesians 3:12
I may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

These things will never change, because they are not based upon me, my feelings, or upon my relationship with any other broken human being, but upon the One who is the ultimate friend, who will never leave, change or fail.

I have become increasingly aware of my need for the Lord’s wisdom in my life this past month, and true to his faithful nature, when I have called, He has answered. An example of this occurred yesterday at church. J.P. Moreland spoke in our morning service because Lance was giving a message in Lancaster. The message that J.P. shared was about finding peace in the midst of trials, based on Psalm 131. I was challenged to examine my attitudes for pride, and haughtiness, and repent. I was again prompted to rely on God’s wisdom rather than my own understanding when faced with circumstances which are beyond my ability to comprehend. Peace comes from trusting God, and allowing Him to be Lord over all circumstances.

After the service, I began to think about personal identity, and the changes that have happened and are continuing to happen in our family’s life, and asked the Lord to show me His perspective on this. We needed to be at night church early, so before the service, I sat in the sanctuary and began journaling my thoughts. They play worship songs over the sound system and this song was playing. It has been very meaningful to me as I have worked through issues regarding my dad:

A Child of God
By Kathryn Scott

With ev'ry breath, with ev'ry thought
From what is seen, to the deepest part
I offer all that I've come to be
To know Your love fathering me

Father, You're all I need
My soul's sufficiency
My Strength when I am weak
The love that carries me
Your arms enfold me
Till I am only, a child of God

With ev'ry step on this journey's walk
And wisdom's songs that the soul has sought
I give myself unreservedly
To know Your love fathering me

© 1999 Vineyard Songs

I was immersed in the song when abruptly, it stopped, and was replaced by the “countdown” music that is used for the last 3 or so minutes before the service starts. It was not at all time for the service to start. Annoyed at the interruption of my reverie, I looked up at the screen, and along with the countdown time, were words that were speaking of our identity in Christ, along with scriptures. I began to write some down, and after about 3 minutes, it stopped, and the song I had been enjoying resumed right where it had left off. God had certainly gotten my attention in those 3 minutes.

Next, during worship, Sarah led us in this song, which really touched my spirit, and after googling the lyrics, I was amused to see the title:

"Full Attention"
by Jeremy Riddle

May Your voice be louder
May Your voice be clearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your face be dearer
May Your words be sweeter
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life

Please keep my eyes
Fixed on You
Please root my heart
So deep in You
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
That I may bear fruit

May Your presence be truer
May Your presence be nearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your light burn brighter
May Your love move deeper
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life

This song really captures my heart’s cry right now. After worship, Jamie gave a message for the night service based on Proverbs 3:5 – 6, which continued to reinforce what I have been feeling the Lord speak to me this past week. I need to trust in the Lord, and lean not on my own understanding, but in all my ways acknowledge Him and He will make my paths straight. Again, I am called to focus on the Lord, who alone is Truth and Wisdom. I have found that when I fix my eyes and heart on Him, and choose to worship Him in the midst of hard times because He is worthy, peace comes. When I spend my energy trying to reason through things that seem unreasonable, the peace leaves. I want to just rest in His will, and commit all my cares and worries for those I love to the one who does not change, and who loves beyond any ability we possess this side of heaven. He is faithful even when we are faithless. Above all else, I want to find my identity in Him as His child. This is something that will never change, no matter what changes come my way.

Dead or Alive?

2009-07-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have posted to my blog, and if you will bear with my musing, I need the catharsis and platform for processing my thoughts that this affords me.

Psalm 126:5 says “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”

These are words that the Lord brought to my heart as Juergen and I were praying over the hurting heart of our youngest daughter. In my anger, I was unable to grab on to those words last night, but this morning they were there again, insistent, when I woke up. Somehow I got the feeling that there was more than the obvious that the Lord wanted me to understand from the verse.

After wrestling in prayer for about an hour, I finally got up and googled the words so I could find the reference. As I meditated on it, I began to think about how many verses of scripture talk about sowing and reaping, and about seeds. In addition to many Old Testament references, there are several to be found in the New Testament. Jesus talked about sowing and reaping: there is the parable of the sower and the seed, with emphasis placed upon the type of soil in which the seed is deposited. Paul gives a warning that we will reap what we sow, but what can we know about the seed?

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Do seeds die? Anyone who has planted seeds knows that they don’t all germinate, so in that sense, some do. But what about viable seeds? It seems as if Jesus is saying that when a seed is planted, it dies. Or is He? I’m thinking of what I have discussed with my 7^th grade science students about seeds. Seeds certainly appear to be dead things, yet if you cut one open, you can discover the starch inside which is evidence of stored food. Why would food be stored in a dried out seed? To support the embryonic life within. Only when the hard exterior seed coat is softened with water can the seedling burst forth and the plant grow, producing fruit with many more seeds, to begin the cycle again.

Thus when we sow, we are sowing something that looks like death, but in reality bears new life within. This image of life hidden within something apparently dead was confirmed for me today as Christina and I talked at lunch. I was sharing my thought process of this morning and telling Christina that I was planning on blogging what I thought the Lord was telling me in hopes of understanding it better. She found it interesting, because she had awakened this morning with a song from the musical, The Secret Garden, going through her head. In the musical, Mary finds a garden that has been long neglected, and thinks it is all dead. In the musical, the garden is representative of the lost love of Mary's uncle.

The gardener, Dickon, tells her that although the garden appears dead, he can tell there is life within. The song is called “Wick”. He explains to Mary what “wick” is:

DICKON:
When a thing is wick, it has a life about it.
Now, maybe not a life like you and me.
But somewhere there's a single streak of green inside it.
Come, and let me show you what I mean.

When a thing is wick, it has a light around it.
Maybe not a light that you can see.
But hiding down below a spark's asleep inside it,
Waiting for the right time to be seen.

You clear away the dead parts,
So the tender buds can form,
Loosen up the earth and
Let the roots get warm,
Let the roots get warm.

Come a mild day, come a warm rain,
Come a snowdrop, a-comin' up!
Come a lily, come a lilac!
Come to call,
Callin' all the rest to come and see!

MARY:
When a thing is wick,
And someone cares about it,
And comes to work each day, like you and me,
Will it grow?

DICKON:
It will!

MARY:
Then have no doubt about it,
We'll have the grandest garden ever seen!!
[Spoken]
Oh, Dickon, I want it all to be wick! Would you
come and look at it with me?

DICKON:
I'll come every day, rain or shine if you want me.
All that garden needs is for us to come wake it up!

MARY:
But, Dickon, what if we save the garden, then Uncle
Archie takes it back, or Colin wants it?

DICKON:
Ay, what a miracle that would be, gettin' a poor
crippled boy out to see his mother's garden!

[Sung]
MARY and DICKON:
You give a living thing
A little chance to grow,
That's how you will know
If she is wick, she'll grow.
So grow to greet the morning,
Leave the ground below.
When a thing is wick
It has a will to grow and grow.

MARY:
Come a mild day, come a warm rain,
Come a snowdrop, a-comin' up!
Come a lily, come a lilac!
Come to call, calling all the rest to come!

MARY and DICKON:
Calling all the rest to come!
Calling all the world to come!

DICKON:
Oh, somewhere there's single streak of green below,

MARY and DICKON:
And all through the darkest nighttime,
It's waiting for the right time.
When a thing is wick, it will grow!

Christina didn’t think anything this morning about that song going through her head until I started sharing with her that I thought the Lord was speaking to me of a seed appearing to be dead, yet bearing life, and then she told me about the song. It seemed awfully much like the same message.

There are several ways to interpret this, and I don’t trust myself to have clear perspective, but because I know my Lord, and his faithfulness, I choose to take encouragement from this. We certainly have been sowing with tears, and grieving over what could have been. The seed is a promise of Christina's future love. It feels like a death, and from appearance, looks to be dead, but maybe there is life within, somewhere. I pray that we will someday indeed reap from this experience with songs of joy. If you have ever heard the song “Wick”, it is definitely a joyful song, full of hope, and while it may not be from scripture, God is Lord of all, even of a musical that holds a place in my dear daughter’s heart, a heart that once was, and now is again a Secret Garden, awaiting a mild day and a warm rain in which to grow.

By the way, the picture at the top of this is of one of my favorite heirloom plants, Love in a Puff. When the puff is mature, it will contain 3 little seeds with hearts on them.