Walk in Obedience.

No lie. Life has been hard lately. First it was the move and a new job and all those stressors. Then it was the pandemic and the shutdowns, and then more shutdowns; fears and worries and lack of fellowship, new mandates. Now there's the ongoing stress of not knowing what is to come, coupled with the residual effects of angst not fully processed. I am tired. I question how to be faithful, how to go on. Don't get me wrong. I want to be faithful, but it's just so hard sometimes.

I define faithfulness for myself as genuineness, staying true to who I am, staying true to the Lord, staying committed to my husband, exercising caution and care, staying in my lane, and ultimately, just being responsible with the things put in front of me. But that's part of the hard. The responsibilities I have right seem so many and weigh heavily on me. I often don't feel like I know where to turn or what to do next. I heard a podcast recently about faithfulness, though. The speakers defined faithfulness as "an outcome of obedience." What if faithfulness is a lot simpler than I've been thinking? What if faithfulness means one thing instead of many things? What if I can just obey God and everything else will follow? Decisions in life might be a whole lot easier!

But how do I obey God? Is that nebulous, too? Well, God gave me His word, the Bible, and it is sound and right in front of me. Some of its commandments are pretty clear:

-"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength....Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-31, New International Version [NIV]).

-"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" (Prov 3:5-6).

-"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess 5:16-18).

I think faithfulness is right in front of me. I think faithfulness is right within me through the indwelling Holy Spirit. I think I've been over complicating things, and faithfulness is simply walking in obedience to God and letting the chips fall. Obedience doesn't make life easy, but it gives me a clear path to follow. That path is not my own, but God's, and His way is the best. Always has been. Always will be. Praise Him.

Three Budgeting Hacks to Save You Money

We're still over here trying to work on our budget. We know that money can be an issue in marriage, and we are trying to manage it together, before it becomes an issue. Here are a few recent budget hacks from our adventures in life together:

1) Track your spending. It's annoying, but seriously, just do it. Start small, maybe just a category or two, and see what you spend, no judgement. We let our Costco membership expire a few months ago, but when we did, I committed to tracking potential savings. We didn't save the first month or so, but guess what? In the last few weeks, gas prices have skyrocketed. With Costco membership, I could have saved $3.00 a week on gas alone. And now we have two cars. So we renewed our membership and now know that we'll at least break even.

2) Look for discounts. We recently discovered that Verizon gives my employer a discount on cell phone plans. We save almost $20 a month by activating that offer. Now we are looking for other places our various affiliations might save us money.

3) Use grocery pickup. This might sound strange, but hear me out. I use the Wal-Mart grocery pickup app to order groceries each week. I use the app as a working grocery list throughout the week. I preload everything I want to buy, and then I look at the total. If I'm over the budget, I see what I can remove. This process has helped me realize how many times I overstock, or buy things when I really don't need them. Shopping via the app also helps reduce splurge buys.

Easy peasy? No. All these budget hacks take time, but they also save money. And time is money, so there's a trade off. Are these hacks right for you? I don't know. Maybe try them and see.

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Do you have any budget hacks to share? Please comment below.

The Best Snack Ever

You all know I like oatmeal, and chocolate, and nighttime snack. But I've got a new recipe for you, one I've been making every week since we got that 50 pound bag of black beans. Simple, satisfying, sweet, but sugar free? This snack checks all the boxes. Don't knock it until you try it. Fudgy. Chocolate-y. Just right!

(Adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie's Flourless Chocolate Blender Muffins)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c cooked black beans

1/3 c old-fashioned or quick oats

2/3 c unsweetened applesauce

1/4 c cocoa powder

1/4 c peanut butter

1 t vanilla

3/4 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/8 t baking soda

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups. (I prefer to use coconut oil.)

2. Blend all ingredients in a food processor until mostly smooth. (There may be some lack of uniformity.)

3. Divide into 10 muffin cups and bake 20 minutes.

4. Remove muffin tins from the oven and let cool on baking racks.

5. Remove muffins and refrigerate until ready to eat.

*These muffins can also be frozen and thawed for later enjoyment.

Listen Without Being Defensive.

A few months ago, my husband and I started a habit of trying to focus each week on improving one area of our marriage. One of the areas we wanted to improve was communication. Being the detailed person that I am, I wanted a specific goal when it came to communication week, so I polled Google for ideas. I came upon "Keys to Effective Communication in Marriage" and decided to work on listening without being defensive. I didn't think I was that argumentative, but I figured it was worth a try. Trust God to bring about focus on an area of my life that really needs attention. 

I was defensive all week, starting with my marriage, and extending from there. I give my husband a rationale for almost every decision I make. My husband tells me I don't need to do so because he trusts me, but I do it anyway. When he shares news, I play the devil's advocate. I'm being defensive. I even read news to him in order to verbally combat it. Goodness!

When Arizona's COVID-19 numbers spiked, national criticism started rolling in. News syndicates bashed the state for its lack of preparations. High school friends who used to live here wrote on social media. I felt a need to write a blog post to defend myself and "my" state. Why? I had no need to defend. The numbers are what they are. My family and I are trying to be responsible. Seriously, the only reason I didn't write the post, though, because it was listening week.

My boss called me in for a meeting at the end of the week. I wasn't in trouble. He just wanted to give me feedback. I confess that I had all kinds of defenses for my actions rolling around in my head as we met, though. What I needed to do was listen and receive.

I went to write an e-mail to the people I serve at work, and I found myself wanting to defend my statements, making for a long and complicated e-mail. There was no need to defend. What the people  needed from me was information. I tried to keep this in mind. I wanted them to listen, not read and write their own defense.

The Bible says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." I didn't see myself as a confrontational person before this week. I hadn't considered that my words could be stirring up anger in others. Defensive words are not always gentle, though, so I am guilty. Listening without defense is a good suggestion for marriage, but really, it's a good suggestion for life. Perhaps if we could listen a little more, we'd all be in a better place, in our marriages, in our relationships outside marriage, and in the world overall.

All The Things We Do to Be Healthy...

All the things we do to be healthy...and then find out we're not so healthy. For example, the time I went to the doctor with super low blood pressure. "Take salt tablets," she said.

What? Salt tablets? I'd been trying to reduce sodium in my diet in order to lessen fluid retention, help my hand, and be healthy overall. And now I had to do the opposite: over salt everything in hopes of raising my blood pressure without those dreaded salt tablets, which supposedly could burn my stomach.

Other things "they" tell me to do to be healthy that might not actually be healthy?

1) Stop eating when no longer hungry. I was super fatigued earlier this year and I think it's because I was eating to assuage my hunger, but not to true fullness. So now I'm eating more, not less.

2) Drink all the water. Apparently there is such thing as too much water. And too much water can also lower blood pressure.

3) Ditch the salad dressing. Actually, fat makes vegetable vitamins more accessible and digestible. Pile on the olive oil for me!

4) Exercise all the time, as much as you can. Nope! Overtraining is a thing. I took April off running to see if that might be happening for me.

5) Skip the caffeine. As with the salt, I might need some to manage blood pressure. Caffeine can help stay awake at key times, and relieve headaches. It has uses, in moderation.

In many ways, health is unique to the person. And all that the media tells us is not science-based. It's advertising designed to make us buy products that will supposedly heal all our diseases. Nothing and no one can do that, no one on earth that is. These are earthly bodies, and yes we should be good stewards, but we also need to realize that we're perishing, and sometimes the best we can do is stress a little less about health and live a little more.

Forgiveness: The Path to Peace

I can't help but feel the weight of all the tensions in the world right now. COVID. Race. Politics. Religion. Sexuality. These are all dividing issues. Polarizing is perhaps not a strong enough word in some situations. I can't help but feel afraid, afraid of the way these issues are tearing apart the social fabric of this "one nation under God," afraid of the carnage that these issues leave behind, afraid that myself or my family might be targeted, afraid that nothing and no one can ever solve these problems.

Then I feel afraid that I will contribute to the problem. What if I unknowingly get COVID and unwillingly contribute to its spread? What if I say that wrong thing at the wrong time?. What if I vote for a person who ends up doing bad things? What if what I say or do is unintentionally offensive? What if there is some photo somewhere, or something I have written that gets taken the wrong way? It seems like there are so many "unforgiveable" sins right now, sins that I could never atone for, no matter what penance I pay. And if there is no forgiveness, there is no hope.

But then I remember the cross. The cross is the great equalizer. The cross demonstrate that anyone and anything can be forgiven. The cross means that there is hope! "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility " (Eph 2:14-15). Should I intentionally abuse the cross by purposefully sinning? As the Apostle Paul writes, "By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Rom 6:2).  Should I fail to repent when unintentional sin is brought to my attention? No. In the Old Testament, sacrifices for unintentional sin still had to be made (Lev 4). But Jesus is the great and perfect sacrifice. He died "once for all" (Rom 6:10). Praise Him!

And what about those who have wronged us? Is the price Jesus paid on the cross sufficient for that, too? I know this is a touchy subject, but friends, if Jesus' perfect death wasn't sufficient to pay for and forgive all sin, nothing ever will be. We can repent and atone and plead and placate all we want and nothing will ever reconcile us to each other, or our nation to itself.

Pay attention to the issues at hand, friends. Act as the Holy Spirit leads. But please don't permanently live in guilt, fear, hopelessness, or shame. Christ died to forgive, to give us new starts, over and over again. Can we pass that forgiveness along, at least a little bit, to ourselves, and to others? Forgiveness, Christ's forgiveness, is the only true path to peace.

(With thanks to our local church body and other churches for their resources reminding me of the sufficiency of the cross. Please contact me directly if you would like access.)

Real Life Marriage: Date Your Spouse

Confession. Despite all the advice we received about the importance of dating after marriage, we didn't really do it in our first year. We made a thousand excuses: We were busy. Our schedules were mismatched. The budget. We were tired. COVID closures. For whatever reason, we just didn't make dating a priority. Recently, it started getting to me. I love my husband. I am so appreciative of the privilege of doing life with him. But I miss dating. I miss the fun. I miss the spontaneity. I miss the romance. I miss the opportunities to break out of the norm. So I started trying to do "date nights" at home. I'm new at it and therefore not that experienced, but here are a few of the ideas we have tried:

Candlelight dinner: Cheesy, but classic. Break out the candles and your nice clothes to eat whatever meal you have fixed. Eat off china plates if you have them.

Game night: Break out the board games or spring for a new game that you can order online and have delivered to your home.

Living room picnic: Spread a blanket, order takeout (or make sandwiches from fridge ingredients), and sit on the floor to eat.

Pizza and a movie: If you have Amazon, there are plenty of free movies, or you can rent a movie from one of the various streaming services.

Vow renewal: We did this for our first anniversary. I recreated out rehearsal dinner and as we ate, re-read my vows to my husband out loud.

What's next? I don't know, but I hope I can keep being creative. Enjoyable experiences relieve stress. They renew. They create new memories. They strengthen relationships. Will we one day go on dates outside the home again? I hope so, but for now, at home date nights are important because they help us prioritize our marriage, and that overall makes home more enjoyable.

Four.

I don't have a whole lot to add to what I wrote last year, but my return to Arizona date is still worth celebrating, because in so many ways, it was a homecoming for me. Were it not for moving home, I wouldn't have marriage, or a renewed relationship with my parents, or a greater sense of myself and who I am, or the experience of moving, of another job change, or of the ups and downs of home ownership. I am thankful for it all.

The desert has always been my home. There's just something about it: The extreme temperature swings. The strength of the sunshine. The cacti. The people I love. The brave, yet brash culture. It just overall fits me. 

Wherever I may roam, Arizona is my home, and for now, I am thankful that it is my actual physical location, too.

Sriracha Turkey and Cheese Breakfast Biscuits

Quarantine cooking creativity? 

It comes and goes. I've been trying to make "special" breakfast on Sundays, but I had run out of ideas. In search for something new, I came upon a few interesting recipes, but didn't like any one specifically, so I combined them  to create this savory and satisfying entree. 

Butter, biscuits, cheese, meat, and heat, this breakfast has it all!

Ingredients:

1/2 t salt

4 T cold butter, diced

1/6 c powdered milk

1 t apple cider vinegar

2/3 c water

8 slices turkey meat

1 c grated cheese

Sriracha to taste

(Biscuit recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour. Sandwiches inspired by a recipe from Budget Bytes.)

Instructions:

1. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

2. Cut cold, diced butter into mixture until it forms clumps the size of peas.

3. Mix powdered milk, vinegar, and water in a separate cup. Stir into flour and butter mixture.

4. Turn out on a floured surface and fold over until all ingredients are incorporated. Add water or flour a tablespoon at a time, if needed, to get to the right consistency.

5. Roll dough into a rectangle shape 1/2 inch thick.

6. Use a sharp knife to cut in 12-16 squares.

7. Lay half the squares face down on an ungreased baking pan.

8. Top each square with one piece of turkey meat, 2 tablespoons of grated cheese, and a squirt of sriracha.

9. Fold turkey meat over to encase the cheese. (Try to flatten each mound of cheese as much as possible to avoid seepage, some of which will happen.)

10. Add the remaining biscuit squares on top, pressing gently, to form sandwiches.

11. Bake 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove pan from oven.

12. Use a thin-edged spatula to push melted cheese back into sandwiches and serve.

Step-by-step photos:

Roll dough into a rectangle shape 1/2 inch thick. Use a sharp knife to cut in 12-16 squares.

Top each square with one piece of turkey meat, 2 tablespoons of grated cheese, and a squirt of sriracha.

Fold turkey meat over to encase the cheese. (Try to flatten each mound of cheese as much as possible to avoid seepage, some of which will happen.)

Add the remaining biscuit squares on top, pressing gently, to form sandwiches.