Easter gratitude...

How can I not be overflowing with gratitude on Easter Sunday?

I just read on someone's Facebook post, 

"God's love language is Jesus", 

with a photo of Jesus on the cross from the movie "The Passion of the Christ".

What a price God was willing to pay for my redemption!

And the fact that Jesus rose again and that He, God in human flesh, is ruling on the throne of the universe, and will one day return to rule on the throne of David and make all things wrong in this world right again, 

well it just doesn't get better than that!

A million thank yous would never be enough to show my gratitude,

but I can at least try.

And so, I keep counting...

******************

Since 2009 I've been counting my blessings thanks to the prompting of Ann Voskamp.

 I continue to count my thanks

piling up gratitude day by day

in my little black journal.

(and capturing some of my blessings via my camera or iPhone)

#4546-#4572

4-14-14-

-lilacs blooming

-beautiful spring weather

-a yummy dinner at my middle daughter's house

-watching my grandson play baseball

-the "blood moon"

-the team from our church's safe arrival in Kumasi, Ghana

4-15-14-

-a phone call from Ghana from my husband 
-an Easter banner from a blog friend

4-16-14-

-facetiming with my husband

-what Augustina told my husband

-our two youngest granddaughters coming over for the evening

-snuggling with them on my bed and reading my favorite Robert McCloskey books to them

4-17-14-

-my Bible study groups

-praying together

-dinner with one of our elder's wives

4-18-14-

-Good Friday-thank You for the cross!

-spending the afternoon with a friend

-good news-hearing about answers to prayer, healing, job's provided, things going well with team in Ghana

4-19-14-

-getting the two youngest granddaughter's ready and taking them to "Code Orange Egg Drop"

(their mama and daddy pastor Hope City that puts on the egg drop so they were working at it)

-seeing volunteers from Truelife Church helping at Hope City's egg drop

-texts and photos from Ghana

(working on the orphanage)

4-20-14-

-CHRIST IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!

-the Truelife Church worship team,  children's ministry volunteers, elders, and our speaker for today doing an excellent job even though pastor and several of our people are in Ghana

-someone we haven't seen in years showing up at church

-flowers from my friend

-lunch with all my girls and grandkids at my oldest daughter's house

-a really great report from Ghana about the Easter service

gratefully yours,

Join the community of gratitude gatherers here...

Christ is risen!

Have a BLESSED EASTER!

still following,

Remembering the cost...

(scripture reference is 1 Corinthians 6:20)

Remembering the price He paid on this Good Friday.

I am His because He created me.

I am His because He redeemed me back from the enemy,

from my slavery to sin.

He is my Beloved Kinsman Redeemer.

Have a blessed Easter weekend.

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

still following,

Friday Favs...Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Cookie Bars {with browned butter and sea salt}

A couple of week's ago I posted a recipe for Easter M&M Cookie Bars.

A few days later, I needed to take a plate of goodies to an event at church.
I thought to myself, why not use the same basic recipe but add
macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips to the batter instead of M&Ms?

They were delicious!

Here is Leslie's recipe that I "tweaked"- (my tweaks are in italics)

Whisk together and set aside:

2 1/8 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Brown 1 1/2 sticks of butter and slightly cool it.

Whisk butter with

1 cup brown sugar 

and

1/2 cup white sugar. 

Add and stir in

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add dry ingredients, mixing until combined but not over mixing.

Pat dough into a 9x13 baking pan that has been sprayed with non stick spray.

Sprinkle 1 cup macadamia nuts and 1 cup white chocolate chips evenly over the dough.

Press nuts and chips down into the batter with your hand or spatula.

Sprinkle top of dough very lightly with sea salt. 

Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

Do not overcook.  Bars should be soft and chewy in the middle.

Enjoy!

(hobnail tumblers from Pier 1)

It's almost Friday, friends!

I hope you have a HAPPY, HAPPY Friday

and

a BLESSED weekend.

                  

Jennifer Rizzo's Fabulously Creative Friday

When being a world changer looks different than you ever imagined...

The phone rings and I can tell by the number that it's my husband calling me on his Ghanaian vodafone.  He's forgotten how early it is here, so I'm not yet fully awake.  I try to listen and make sense, which is a struggle before I've had my morning coffee.  I ask about the different team members from our church that are with him there to help work on the orphanage.  Sometime during the conversation he tells me about his morning.

He got up early before the rest of the team in order to have some quiet time.  He got ready, (as best as he could with the power out and no running water), and went outside to sit on the large porch of the retreat center where the team is staying.  As he tells me, I can picture it vividly from my time there two years ago.  I can see what he's seeing, smell the smells of Kumasi, hear the sounds.  

He tells me that he can hear Augustina, who lives across the rutted red clay street.  As she is outside scrubbing her laundry, she is singing and worshiping the Lord.  She looks up and sees him and greets him, "Hello, Daddy!", she calls to him, her greeting one of respect and affection. "I'm just praising the Lord!"  She goes on to tell him about the package sent with my son-in-law and the team to her from my daughter, who was unable to take the trip this time due to her pregnancy.  Then she says something to him that brings him to tears, and me to tears as he relays it to me, "Your daughter, she is like Jesus to me."

She was our strong-willed child from the moment she left my womb.  But, once that girl set her mind to serve the Lord, she did it with relentless determination.  She was going to be a world changer for Jesus, but evidently how she pictured that happening and God's plans were two vastly different things.  She tells a bit about it in this post.  This morning, I pondered this after my phone conversation with my husband.  I thought about how we forget that this is how we become a world changer, by changing one person's world.

I think about Jesus, and wonder what the lasting fruit was from feeding the five thousand.  I wonder how many kept following Him once the loaves and fishes were gone.  Yet, it's different when we read about Jesus encountering the woman at the well. We read about the results of this encounter.

She was a social outcast, because she was a woman, because she was a Samaritan - a half-breed Jew, because she had a "history" with men having been married five times and was now living with a man she wasn't married to.  We read that Jesus "had to" go through Samaria.  He had a divine appointment to keep with this woman.  In the course of their conversation Jesus tells her all about her past and reveals Himself as the Messiah.  This is what we read recorded in John chapter 4 about the results of this encounter, 

39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Maybe you can relate to my daughter, you want to be a world changer for Jesus but things just aren't going the way you imagined them.  I want to encourage you to ask Him to show you who is your woman at the well, your Augustina, your next divine appointment.  Then go be a world changer, one by one by one. 

still following, 

     

Also joining THOUGHT PROVOKING THURSDAYS 

at 3-D Lessons for Life

Little White Cabinets...

I've had this little white cabinet sitting out in the garage in its unopened box for years.

I have two others just like it.

One hangs in the downstairs half bath/laundry room

and one hangs in the upstairs guest bath.

I think the third one was given to me by my oldest daughter who decided not to use it in her house.

Recently, I decided to bring it in and see how it would look in my kitchen.

I put a few small interesting things inside, like these old kitchen items that used to belong to Mama.

A stack of little ironstone saucers sits on the top shelf of the little cabinet.

( I had to include this happy lilac photo.  The lilacs are just starting to bloom here!)

Here's the same type of cabinet hanging in the upstairs guest bathroom.

And here's the same type of cabinet in our downstairs half bath/laundry room.

One of my most cherished items is kept in the cabinet in the downstairs bath,

these little toy sailors from WWII.

They belonged to my Daddy.

Some seashells and other small items are also displayed in the cabinet.

Some French soaps and my Mama's old enamelware soap dish are another treasure kept in the little cabinet.

Have you pulled anything interesting out of your garage or storage area lately?

still following,