5 reasons you should love soup...

... and also a (super easy!) recipe for black bean soup today over at somaticos.  this soup will literally take you less than ten minutes of hands on time and will serve a lot of people.  especially great if you are having guests over for the holidays!

click here to read on...

new recipes

in the past couple weeks i have been experimenting with some new recipes, and i have posted some of them over at somaticos!


click here if you want to learn how to make:

lamb gyros (with more about why we chose grass-fed meats)

avocado tuna salad (and read about our avocado problem)

where is your mind during prayer?

"how easily we convince ourselves that we are praying to the Lord when in reality we are locked in our own thoughts.  we need to ask: if i'm happy, am i really rejoicing in Him or am i rejoicing in my own self-satisfaction?  if i'm worried or afraid, am i truly and humbly asking Him for help or is my mind busy trying to work our some plan (however spiritual it may seem) for getting myself out of trouble"

-mike mason, as quoted in prayers of an excellent wife

encouragement for young moms

have i posted this one before? oh well, even if i did, it is worth repeating.

DA Carson:

"Martyn Lloyd-Jones once spoke with a group of medical students who complained that in the midst of their training and the ferocious work hours they really didn’t even have time to read the Bible and have their devotions and so on. He bristled and said, “I am a doctor. I have been where you are. You have time for what you want to do.” After a long pause he said, “I make only one exception: the mother of preschool-aged children does not have time and emotional resources.”

It is important to recognize, too, that there are stages of life where you really don’t have time to do much, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Children will sap you. If you have three children under the age of six, forget serious reading unless you have the money for a nanny. When our youngest finally went off to kindergarten, we celebrated that day—I took my wife out for lunch. Only then could she get back into reading again. It’s the way life is. You have to be realistic."

HT: Take your Vitamin Z

a conundrum

if john the baptizer was filled with the holy spirit from the womb (luke 1:15), does that mean his physical birth was re-birth?

or does it mean he was reborn before he was born?

the whole grain myth

"Many of you have been intrigued and surprised by Alex's series on the long distance cardio myth (you can read the series here, here, here and here).  Sometimes we think that living in America we always have the best and most up to date information, but that is not always the case.

As I have done more of my own research into nutrition recently, I have found another myth that I have fallen into: the importance of carbohydrates in our diet, and especially whole grains.  My previous mentality was that whole grains should be the majority of my meal at every meal, but not so any more..."


read on here

one food to AVOID to boost your immunity

i just finished up a series at somaticos about various foods to eat to boost your immunity.  today, i am writing about one food to stay away from, as it will weaken your immunity.

wonder what it is?  i will give you a hint: i can almost guarantee that you ate some of it today.

read more here.

did you miss part of the series? click to read more about boosting your immunity with:

• Coconut Oil
• Raw Garlic
• Yogurt and other Probiotic Food
• Bone Broth

praying for the grace to be a joyful melancholy

last night at our community group we talked about thankfulness, God's sovereignty and how he designs hard things for our good and His glory.

of course that got me thinking about our kids and how God has designed this situation for me and for us.

things are often hard these days.  i am experiencing a lot of vacillation.  one minute i love being with the kids and thankful for God's work in their lives.  but the next minute i am overwhelmed and thinking about everything i wish i could be doing as a mother that i cant with so many kiddos running around.  i often feel like i am running on empty, leading me to be negative and joyless.

but here is the thing.  i know myself and even if i had lots of time and an easy job i think that i would still find ways to feel stressed and overwhelmed.  the reason i think so is when i think back over the past 4 or 5 years, i would say that i have felt overwhelmed and drained most of the time... during college, during my STINT year in germany, during my internship year at ohio state and also our first year in california as i worked as a behavior therapist.

i know that part of it is my personality.  i am an introvert, and it seems like God is constantly putting me in positions where i am pouring myself out in the lives of other people.  furthermore, i am an overachiever so i am constantly buried under the weight of my expectations on myself.  and being a melancholy-phlegmatic, by nature i look for what is hard, and i wallow.  it is very easy for me to be down and hard for me to be up.

but i dont want to be that way.

and if that was the end of the story, i would have reason to mourn.  BUT...

for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. for one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— BUT God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:6-11 ESV)
 
but i say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. i warn you, as i warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Galatians 5:16-24 ESV)
 
my soul is bereft of peace;

i have forgotten what happiness is;
so i say, “my endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the LORD.”

remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
my soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.

BUT this i call to mind,
and therefore i have hope:
the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.


“the LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore i will hope in him.”
the LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.


it is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

(Lamentations 3:17-26 ESV)
 
 
 
 
that last verse especially strikes me.  how un-american to wait for something, let alone wait quietly!  though it is un-american, it can and will happen by his grace (free gift).
 
and ALL of this is by his grace.  i need it.
 
that is why i am praying for it.

two great reasons NOT to include santa in your celebration this year

photo © 2009 Andrew Kitzmiller | more info (via: Wylio)
"celebrating santa and a manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is.  it's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality.  we want our children to understand God as fully as they are able, at whatever age they are.  so we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort their understanding.

[also] think how confusing it must be to a literal thinking, uncritical pre-schooler.  santa is so much like what we're trying all year to teach our children about God.  look at all the "attributes" of santa:

• he's omniscient- he sees everything you do
• he rewards you if you are good
• he's omnipresent- at least he can be everywhere in one night
• he gives you good gifts
• he's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure

but at a deeper level that children cannot comprehend yet, he is not like santa at all.  for example, does santa really care if we're good or bad?  think of the most awful kid you can remember.  did he or she ever not get gifts from santa?  what about santa's spying and then rewarding you if you're good enough?  that's not the way God operates.  he gave us his gift- his Son- even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (romans 5:8).  he gave his gift to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough."


-noel piper, treasuring God in our traditions, p. 80-81