Cinnamon!

I'm fairly certain my current favorite spice is cinnamon. Even just the smell alone almost makes it my favorite spice. I recently have made 3 different cinnamon desserts and they were all great hits. I think the best is Snickerdoodle Blondies. I've included the recipe from 'Chef in Training' for your convenience :)

• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup cinnamon chips (you can omit them if you would like)
• 2 tablespoons white sugar (for topping)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (for topping)

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and set aside. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.

Stir in the flour mixture until well blended, then mix in cinnamon chips if using. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Mixture will be thick and resemble cookie dough. (I used my hands to press it down and smooth the top).

Combine white sugar and cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool slightly. While still warm, cut into bars with a sharp knife.

Unbelief

Do you really believe God will do what He says? Here is what I mean. We pray all the time about things we'd like to happen. Which is great. The problem comes when we are surprised that God answers our prayers. Here are two examples in just the last week or so in my life. As you should now me and Joe are in the process for buying a house. We have prayed about the house and we really feel that house is the one God wants us in. Now do we trust Him that He'll provide the money for this house? Apparently not because we were both really surprised when we received a check for an extra three hundred and fifty dollars that we didn't know about. If we really trusted, it wouldn't be a surprise. Another example is y friend's parents. They were really struggling in their marriage and talking very seriously about getting a divorce. Well we've been praying about it a lot and now they're back to living together and my friend says they're as happy as she's seen them since she was about five. And I was surprised about that. Do we think God doesn't care or something? What leads to this surprise when our prayers are answered?! I think Mark 9:24 sums it up best. "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!"

Hard times

One of my favorite verses is 1 Corinthians 7:28. "Those who marry will face many troubles in this life." It's so real. God never paints marriage as a picture perfect thing and we'll be happy forever. No, that's how society views marriage. I think that if Christians went back to the Bible, looked and did what it said about marriage, there would be a much lower divorce rate. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loves the Church. Wives respect your husbands as unto the Lord (Eph. 5) And it will be hard. I think almost everything good in life is hard and worth fighting for. Why should marriage be any different?

Loaves and fishes

Read John 6:1-13. It's the story of the feeding of the five thousand with 5 loaves and 2 fish. One detail I never gave much attention to was the boy who gave the disciples his food. I think it's amazing that this boy was trusting enough to give all his food to try to help. I'm pretty sure if that were me, I'd really not want to part with my only food for the day. But this little boy was willing to give up his food. I really don't think he expected Jesus to multiply it so much that everyone could stuff themselves and still have extra. Maybe he thought everyone could maybe have a bite. But he was willing to give up his whole day worth of food so everyone could have a bite. Of course he was blessed in this trust by having a lot more. But before the blessing came trust. Do you have that kind of trust? I'm not sure I do.

Packing....

Well it's officially one month until we close on our house. My brilliant idea was to pack a little each weekend, that way it's not overwhelming to me. Well the one problem is I forgot I actually like to pack..... So I packed two boxes today. And I want to pack more. I'm going to have to restrain myself from packing or else we won't have anything left in our house! Argh, I was doing fine with waiting, now it's back! I should have known....

Sharing hard things

One of the things that breaks my heart the most is how Christians interact with each other. Christians feel the need to hide behind fake smiles with each other. I think we feel that they will judge us or not see us in the same light. Sometimes that thought is accurate. Sometimes it's not. But we are the children of God! Shouldn't we be able to tell our brothers and sisters anything? What if we really shared struggles and hard things. Even our happiest times we don't necessarily want to share.  We need to be building those relationships so that we feel comfortable sharing.

Over romanticize

I found something out about myself this week. I tend to over romanticize things. That's most of why I've had such a hard time of the whole process with the house. I thought it would be easy, we go in pick a house we like and boom, a month later we have the house of our dreams and we're loving life. It is exciting and wonderful, but it is also hard. It brings stress between me and Joe because we're making decisions that will affect our lives for a long time. We don't always agree on these decisions either... It's brought stress financially as well. But through all the hard parts it's so amazing to see how God is teaching us. We really have to trust Him that we're making the right decision. We're learning to communicate more and more with each other and work through differences. So life is hard. But it is also so good right now.

God is so amazing!

*sigh* I Love how specific God is in His love. Yesterday I was stressing a little about paying for the house and everything we want to do it it. I was talking to Joe about this and he said not t worry, God will provide. He stated that God can do the same thing with a penny as He can with a million dollars. I sarcastically added in my head that He's God and I can't do that. (Almost forgetting the fact that He can do that for me) So anyway this morning I was opening yesterday's mail since I hadn't had time then and I find a check for over three hundred and fifty dollars! I don't really know where it came from. So yesterday while I was stressing about money, God sent us a check, organizing the weather and mail sorters to arrive exactly the day I needed it. He was saying, silly child don't you know I can do anything? It was pretty amazing to see a specific example of Christ providing.

February

For being a short month February was sure long. I'm so happy it's over! In our circumstances it was hard and very busy. We decided we would start looking for houses, and bought one! Well not technically yet, but soon... That in and of itself was a huge process for me and Joe. It took a lot of thought, prayer and communication. We had to really focus and try to figure out how we would be able to best serve God with our house. It was kind of fun establishing even more firmly the goals and ministries that Christ has laid out for us. It was also a very busy month. I felt like we never had time to sit and relax. But it's over and now it's March! Spring is almost here!