easter garden

If you’ve been with me for a while you know that once upon a time, I had a very bad day and I bought a pot for my front doorstep.  And if you know my house, if you grace us with your presence, you also know that apart from this pot and a flower bed or two, the rest of our front yard looks like people have been playing football in it.  Because they have.  When we first moved here there was some grass with weeds mixed in.  Then the weeds took over, and now there is just dirt.

I am developing a tradition of filling this pot in the spring with a few pretty plants that will make me smile when I walk past them into my front door.  A focal point.  Perhaps the neighbors will also point their eyes towards my little pot, instead of the eyesore that is the front lawn.  But even if they don’t, I still will.

Early last week I got a vision for my treasured pot.  A blogger I read made this beautiful Easter garden in a basket with her children.  Her basket has a darling little stone path leading to a chiseled out rock that represents Jesus’ empty tomb.  I thought about letting my children participate, but since I bought this pot for the lifting of my own soul, I opted to put it together Friday while they were at school.  Simon helped a little.  However, I did not chisel a tomb.  When you go out in to our garage to find a tool such as a chisel, you find computer cords, old hard drives, motherboards and other technical pieces of equipment that I can’t name.  This is the kind of handy my husband is.  Computer handy.  So I found some rocks from Mary Polly’s field trip to the Crystal Mines last spring and I made do.  In my heart, I see the tomb.

When Mary Polly and Ben got home from school they ooohed and awwed over our spring garden.  They even guessed about the tomb.  Then they went and got all these little tiny toy animals and put them all over my spring pot.  And I was feeling so generous and warm that I did NOT say, Um, could you please get all that plastic junk out of my beloved pot? I said, oh, it looks sweet. I did not say this because I love miniature plastic animals.  Of course I do not.  I just didn’t want to put any negative energy into such a perfectly sunshiny day.

Happy Holy Week to you and yours.

no other way

Today is Wednesday, so Simon and I should be together at BSF.

But instead I am in Colorado and he is in Arkansas and BSF is off for the week.

In honor of not going to BSF, here is Simon singing his two favorite songs he learned there.

Cutest child EVER!

is strength spent on cupcakes in vain?

The title of the Bible Study Fellowship study for this year is The Life of Moses.  I started the fall very excited to study Moses and all through September and October, the study did not disappoint.  Also, I have loved hearing Simon and Campbell’s preschool renditions of Go Down Moses and Let My People Go. Good stuff, I’m telling you.

But somewhere before Christmas, we got past all the glorious escaping from Egypt and waded knee deep into instructions for life in the desert as you follow the one true God.  Get it?  JUST ONE!  They don’t get it.  (And neither do we.) So they need to be told over and over again, have it driven into their skulls by doing strange things like redeeming an ox from the temple with an increase in its value by a fifth.  Seriously.  So things kind of began to slow down.  Since Christmas we’ve been bogged down in Leviticus and I’m going to be honest and say that I haven’t really been that jazzed about studying, among other things, detailed sacrificial rites.

However, usually there is something to grab onto each week in the midst of the lists and the tedious instructions.  Last week we finished with the last five chapters of Leviticus.  I was all YES, Leviticus, CHECK and then I opened my new lesson and we’re starting Numbers.  Not that big of an upgrade really.  But back there in the middle of Leviticus 26 was my bit for the week.  God is listing off all of the horrific things that will happen to Israel if they disobey the laws He has given them, which of course they will do (and so will we), and sandwiched between disease, famine, war and other statements of hopelessness is this little condemnation,

Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of land yield their fruit.

There were several things about this verse that I sort of latched onto this week.  The first being that spending one’s strength in vain is actually part of the punishment.  I often live by the idea that if I just work hard enough that I can overcome or at least get through anything, so the thought of spending my strength to the point of being worn out for it to all be a waste, amounting to nothing, is so terribly sad to me.  Even worse is that I inflict this very “punishment” on myself by choosing inane pursuits as worthy of all my strength in the first place.

The other concept that stood out to me as I studied this verse is that I can be doing everything right and it still be in vain if God does not want that particular crop to flourish.  Ultimately, He is in control.  Amidst the constant media stream of the economy tanking and the growing recession, I am reminded that it is God who determines if the land will yield its fruit, if the economy will rise or fall and if I will continue or cease to live tomorrow.  I am grateful for this reminder of who’s really in control.  Because when I watch my firstborn, I realize that his attempts to rule the world are only slightly less veiled than my own.  I am a little more savvy in my control game but no less fooled into spinning myself silly.

So the idea, the tidbit for the week, the little BSF morsel would be that I can let go of vainly trying to control everything around me.  I know you’ve never heard that before.  It’s brilliant right?

Then I go to church yesterday and I remember that instead of spending my strength in vain, I could choose to listen to the words of Isaiah.

In repentance and rest is your salvation,

In quietness and trust is your strength.

All of these thoughts are of course much easier said than done, but I think I might have taken some weensy steps toward letting go as I chanted these phrases at yoga this morning.

remember

i realized today as i was sitting by the lake that most days i am wearing three different scripture references right next to my skin. i went down to the lake to catch my breath and just enjoy a moment of quiet between the events of the day. i was holding my necklace and meditating on the scripture it represents and my mind wandered to this idea of actually carrying scripture around all the time to remind me of the truths i so desperately need to refer. then it sort of just came to me that i had three represented right there with me.

it’s not a new idea. moses commands the people of israel in deuteronomy to do this.

place these words on your hearts.

get them deep inside you.

tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder.

teach them to your children.

talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street;

talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night.

deuteronomy 11:18-19 the message

so here are my three daily reminders, constantly present with me, of God’s precious word.

first, my wedding ring:

it’s actually in greek, because my brilliant husband was studying greek in seminary when we got married.

it’s the phrase: as unto the Lord from ephesians 5. tai’s wedding band (also in greek) says as Christ loved from the same passage. both short phrases are the essence of longer thoughts about how husbands and wives are meant to love one another. the dance, the give and take of submission and sacrifice. i love to glance down at my wedding ring and remember both truths. and that it takes both. sometimes one of us is fulfilling the promise better than the other, but over 13 years of marriage, there have been some glorious moments where grace rained down and we were both in step with these ideas and it just works.

the second scripture reference is engraved on the inside of a james avery ring that i bought four of when three girls that i had been meeting with for a while were all graduating from college. we had studied revelation together that year and each of us had been impacted by the first five verses of chapter two. we all took away the idea that we are to remember our first love, jesus. we each spent time nourishing that thought and trying to reach back to the moment in time when we had first become acquainted with jesus and were completely enamored with him, reading the first four books of the new testament, just to read again of his compassion, his teaching, his unorthodox way of approaching life. we began to say to one another…remember your first love. i still hold those three darling gals in my heart. and even though we none of us live in the same state (or even country in one case), when i glance at my ring finger on my right hand i pray that each of them are remembering their earliest, most passionate feelings for jesus. and i tell myself again to remember.

and the last piece of jewelry has on it my most favorite verse in the whole bible. i put it on everything from my 30th birthday contemplative retreat, an event i have mentioned before on this blog. i was studying isaiah when i moved to arkansas and this verse served as the inspiration for our new house. i painted our living room blood red, much to the displeasure of everyone involved, most especially my grandfather who still comments on how oppressive it was. the room no longer exists because we later took a wall down and repainted, but for our first several years here, our living room was red and our bedroom was (and is) bright white. my favorite verse was manifested on the walls of my house to remind me over and over again that though my sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. i don’t believe that God means for me to walk around laden with guilt and overwhelmed by my sin. but my disposition has always been guilty. i blame my parents for naming me alison, which means truth. i have never been able to lie well. just this week my dad told me that i still don’t have a poker face. my roommate in college said if she had to describe me with only one word, it would be convicted. and while conviction of heart can be a beautiful act of spirit within me, its counterpart…my hyperactive guilt gland can be an ugly stick with which i beat myself. so somewhere in a bout of guilt and shame and sadness, i latched onto this verse.

what is sweet to me is that because of my birthday (and my crazy paint job), people who are close to me remember that this verse is special to me. my aunt made me a beautiful planter for my 30th birthday with this verse etched onto it. and this year, i was delighted when whitney gave me a necklace for my birthday with isaiah 1:18 on it. it hangs around my neck most days now and i refer to it as often as i do to either of my rings. remembering that i am forgiven for all those things i did a long time ago. and for those words i said yesterday. and even for the unkind thoughts i had this morning. confessed. covered. clean. white as snow.

who is great

in the moments of clarity between the clouds of sickness, i have been thinking a lot about what it means to be great. this has been a conversation on my heart for a while now. last weekend, a friend and i spent a late night talking about how we celebrate people’s failures because it makes us feel better about ourselves…because we have this idea that there can only be a few who are great. and then we studied matthew 18 in bsf this week, where the disciples ask jesus what it takes to be the greatest. working through those questions and hearing carla talk about this word “great” as God sees it and as the world sees it has worked its way through me this weekend. and it is serving as a filter for all of the other muck i hear and experience.

and it comes to this sad truth. jesus said it. carla said it. my friend and i said it last week.

the world loves to see people taken down.

we don’t rejoice in another’s success, because somehow we feel there will be less “great” leftover for us. when someone succeeds, we sit back, watch and wait…for them to fail. or fall. or both.

why do we do this? why don’t we long to see each other lifted up? why are our hearts so dark? as dark as my head stuffed with the cold that threatens to explode it at any moment?

and in the midst of it…hearing different people tell their stories of being stomped on by the world or by a trusted other…a song has filled my heart. again, from the worship ipod selection. simon and i sat with our sick selves on my yoga mat this morning, praying as we listened to this song over and over. (i think he was praying…)

broken but singing

my life is shining

broken but singing

my life is shining

the song is called walk the world (charlie hall). it’s about shining the love of jesus in the world. which is great. a different kind of great. great in God’s economy. because God chose the lowly, the despised, the weak things of this world. and that’s what i am. i love that picture. all the people i know that i am lifting up (myself included)…this is the prayer i said for them today. that even though we are broken, that we would still be singing and shining. and for that alone, we are great. and there’s no shortage of room for this kind of great.

whoever welcomes one of these

i was doing my bsf lesson this morning and i wanted to write all about this one question that is on there, but then i remembered that i was a volunteer in the children’s department last week and i had wanted to write about that. so let’s just pretend it is last wednesday afternoon. before i left bsf and went on to the rest of my day.

and forgot what it was like to be a toddler.

something i haven’t told you about bsf is that once a semester you are encouraged to volunteer in the children’s department. i find that generally bsf-ers don’t care for this requirement, and tend to sort of grumble about it without any regard for the fact that you, sitting right there in their discussion group, actually have a child in the program. so if you are psycho-guilty like me, you feel bad that this person, who doesn’t want to be around your child (or any other children), has to be a volunteer and you wish you could help them out of it. right now i don’t happen to have children in the program, so i don’t feel bad when people complain. simon is too young, so he has to go to grandjule’s house during bsf, along with the homeschooler.

usually, it’s not necessarily that bsf-ers don’t like children. it’s just that it takes so much to get to bsf every week with your lesson done and it seems like a waste to have to miss the entire day of bible study to play with toddlers, who, by the way, already have two bsf children’s leaders in their rooms with them.

but i am here to tell you that it is not a waste.

this is one of those annoying bsf rules that i can actually defend. now i know that because, as i have said before, i would often rather be with children than adults, that maybe being a volunteer in the children’s department comes a little easier for me than some. that being said, i still think it is a valuable use of anyone’s time. and anyone can do it. it’s not like in the other places in your life where you might be asked to work with children where you have to prepare activities or even lead lessons. when you volunteer at bsf, you just show up. with your little childlike heart. you go in. you sit right down on the floor (which is easy for you if you’ve been going to yoga…and after you’ve read my blog for this long, how can you possibly be not going to yoga?) and you say something like what are we doing here? oh goody! blocks. i bet i can stack ten of these up. can you? and for the next two hours you don’t have to do anything but be a well behaved child. when the leaders say it is time for songs, you pull the chairs over and sing songs. when they say it’s time for the bathroom, we all line up and go to the bathroom. when it is time for the story we do little finger plays with our hands and then put them in our laps and be real real quiet and listen to the story, which is always some portion of what we are actually studying in the adult class at bsf. this is especially fascinating during the year that bsf studies the minor prophets.

you move with the class through all of these little 10 minute increments into which the bsf masterminds (they’ve spent years working all of this out i tell you.) have segmented the bsf children’s program experience. and i truly believe that it works beautifully because children, especially small children, really crave order. and orderly it is. if a child gets out of line, he or she might as well have committed a felony. the director is called in to handle the job. she gently sits with the little demon that won’t sit still for the 10 minute story time, patting his back and encouraging him. telling him the answers when questions are asked so he can exercise his turn to talk. notice that this is not my job as a volunteer. nope. i’m still just sitting there. maybe sometimes someone sits on my lap. i don’t get to answer any questions.

towards the end is my most favorite part. something that revolutionized how i spent my early mornings with my toddlers when i had them in bsf. it is quiet time. (i know you’re shocked that it’s my favorite.) it’s not nap time. it’s quiet time. it is when the leaders turn off the lights and you lie down on the ground with your head on a paper towel (your pillow) and close your eyes and talk to God. in my view, quiet time is just another word for shavasana. and so i lie down in corpse pose (with my head on a paper towel, you know, to protect it) and enjoy the quiet 10 minutes. praying. thanking God for these women who love these children every week. they pray for these children every day. they prepare for these children’s classes with as much or more rigor than we prepare for the adult class, and they still do the adult lessons too. in the midst of a week that was swirling around me in a way that felt uncontrollable, i was completely still on the floor in a room full of toddlers. 2 year olds, fidgeting and sucking their thumbs. talking to jesus. and here’s the best. when it is your turn to get up from quiet time, the bsf teacher comes around with a little puppet that taps you on the cheek and she says, God loves you, alison. oh yeah…i got it too. just like the others. and i was glad to hear it. i always am.

He called a little child and had him stand among them.

And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:2-4

hiding place

starting monday morning (and therefore my week) with yoga is one of the most sane choices i make in my schedule. and this morning, jeanne did not disappoint. she worked us hard, but again, you don’t realize how hard you are working. you’re just following…moving, holding, listening, moving, holding again, and on and on. then before i know it, i am drenched in sweat and falling heavily into the earth.

i knew this morning that i was going to have trouble focusing. i woke up feeling sort of exposed. for many reasons, some that make sense and some that are completely figments of my imagination, but there you go…still, somehow, i found myself feeling just a wee bit vulnerable. the events of the last week or so have shaken me up a bit i suppose and even this morning as i was going over some things for bsf and for my meeting with my sistas. (i meet on thursday mornings with two precious women whom i dearly love.) i just kept becoming distracted. so as i was pulling out my things for yoga i grabbed my mantra list. this is what i am calling this list from this completely cheesy, yet necessary book that i am studying with my sistas. we are reading and answering questions that have mostly to do with focusing on our identity in jesus. the whole point of the study is to be free to live out of who we are. and in order to do this, one must actually know who he or she is. in christ. so at the beginning of the study there is an entire list of declarations of who you are in christ that you…or we, in my case, are supposed to be saying out loud every morning and every evening. that is the goal. mostly the three of us are just trying to say them whenever we can and the idea is that eventually the lies in our brains about who we are will be replaced with the truth about who we truly are. it sounds tedious and simple and self-help-y, i know, but you can’t believe how it actually works. and as with all things spiritual in my life, the messages i am repeating to myself are also popping up in other places. we have been singing this song for several weeks at church called i know who i am. the whole song is about being certain of your place as a child of God, belonging, free. when this song was first introduced, it seemed simple and almost trite to me, but now that i have been repeating it for several weeks, it is working its way into my heart and i love to sing it. to declare, again and out loud that i am confident of who i am as a precious child of God lifts up my soul. also, i am hearing these same messages in a david crowder band song that i would not have even found were it not for the need to stay awake driving home from taos. taido had the ipod completely loaded with mellow songs and rap music, and so i listened to this one upbeat worship playlist about 14 times, camping on this song that repeats the lyric,

you make everything glorious

you make everything glorious

and i am yours,

so what does that make me?

again, a declaration that i belong to God and that i have value (even glory) just on the basis of that truth. when i meditate on that for a while, it overwhelms me. amazes me. and again, lifts up my soul.

so as i am going to yoga this morning, i grab one phrase from the list of declarations. my eyes are scanning the now familiar list and trying to just hold onto one in particular to take with me into yoga. to chant. so i can focus. and when my eyes landed on it, i quickly said it a few times and took off, as i was late to meet my sweet sister-in-law. and it wasn’t until i had chanted it for about half of the class to myself as i was sweating with jeanne this morning that i realized why i had clutched that specific phrase today. of course. just what i needed for today. which is how God works. it is a huge advantage of being all-knowing and all-powerful. He always knows. always provides.

and as i fell into my mat at the end– shavasana is a place of total surrender. open. vulnerable. exposed. but at rest. at peace–i said it again.

i am hidden with Christ in God.

light in the darkness

Isaiah 58

1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.

3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

14 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

yesteday i was doing my bsf lesson (on matthew chapter 12) and a question referenced isaiah 58…read Isaiah 58…all of it. and so i flipped over and there were these words. old friends. i wasn’t even thinking about it as i flipped over to isaiah, but these are words that have deeply impacted me. and reading them yesterday brought back many emotions to my heart. and new encouragements because they apply so deeply to what my parents are currently doing in kenya.

our move back to arkansas several years ago rocked me in a way i can’t really explain, but after about three months of being here, we were heading into the christmas season and i was in one of the darkest places i can ever remember being, either before or since. that christmas is a complete blur except for that i vividly remember hearing about a suicide happening on christmas eve and feeling jealous of that man. he didn’t have to get up on christmas morning and i did.

at some point after the hype of christmas had started to fade, i was in our house, one in which we had not yet moved, painting and trying to get it ready. it was late at night and for some reason, i was listening to a sermon on a cd that taido had burned for me. i can’t even remember the miracle of how it got into the cd player or how i managed to decide to listen to it but the words were the first truth that had broken through to me in weeks. when i am in a bad place, i have usually let my mind feed on all kinds of lies for weeks and weeks and the truth is no longer accessible in my heart. lies about who i am and my worth and about the people in my life who actually love me. so it doesn’t matter what anyone says to me because i can’t hear it. it’s funny how now that this has occurred a number of times in my life, i can see that pattern in my rear view mirror. but for the life of me it is hard to see it coming. anyway, for some reason this sermon just shattered my lies. i fell down on the floor crying and crying…for who knows how long. and when i finally got up, i knew that the clouds had parted. the world was not going to end this christmas season. so i began a very slow uphill battle back to being normal (whatever that is) with these sweet verses as my arsenal. i had been given back a little fighting power against all the lies. the verse that stayed with me was also the title of the sermon…”your light will break forth like the dawn.” i come back to those words a lot. because i want to be in the light, not the darkness. and i don’t want to hold all of the light to myself, but i want it to somehow shine out of me. i want it to pour forth like the sun. but it doesn’t always seem possible. over the next few months i probably listened to that sermon 20 times and i started memorizing isaiah 58. i wanted to have it memorized by my 30th birthday the following september. when i would gather with many women i love dearly and we would walk through isaiah together. that weekend is an event i hold so tightly in my heart that i still haven’t been able to really write about it. but i know that i would never have had that weekend if these verses had not broken through to me one cold winter night.

so how precious to see them again. and to know they are still true. this winter. this dreary day. light will come. and as i read them, i prayed them for my parents and many others in kenya whose frames must need to be strengthened after days of grueling medical clinics in the hot kenya sun. i feel confident that they are being like springs. waters that never fail. and that i too can be a part of that same well-watered garden.

i want these verse to be true of me. even when they are not true, when i am sapped, dry and broken, i still have within me, however faint, the desire that they would be true. that they would be more true of me tomorrow than they are today.

i might even wear my new apron and pass out cookies

i’m going to get up with taido tomorrow at church and this is what i am going to say. at least, i hope it is.

i experience joy at christmas through children. there is a verse at the end of malachi that says,

he will turn the hearts of the parents to their children,

and the hearts of the children to their parents

i have always loved that verse. i envision this time when we see the children around us. when we can hear their hearts. when we have made room for them in our day.

i think at christmas our awareness of children is naturally heightened. our hearts are turned toward them. so it is a season of opportunity for me to enjoy children like i believe God intended. like this verse describes. this year i have really intentionally tried to slow things down around our house so that i have more time to snatch these moments of joy with my children. some of the ways we do this at our house have a lot of meaning to them. we have an advent calendar with scripture readings that we read in the mornings before school. we have a toy nativity the older kids have used to teach the christmas story to simon, our youngest. that they are doing this is a confirmation to me that we have taught them that this story about jesus is one that we tell over and over again. it is a part of who we are. this story. i love to watch them hold the angels singing or the wise men traveling.

there are other things we do that might be less meaningful, but that are still sweet moments to see the joy in a child at christmas. we spend a lot of time baking and preparing food. i love that anticipation of cookies in the oven. are they ready? are they ready? or a request to lick the frosting off the beater. is it time? is it time? we drink special hot chocolate, with candy canes. and when i hand a child that beater, or their cocoa cup or their cookie or i sit on the floor with a child and read a story or hear one of my children tell about the baby jesus in the manger, i drink in their little faces. i love them. my heart is turned toward them. and it brings me great joy.

honey

we’re doing this scripture reading program at my church. our pastor, who also happens to be my dad, said on sunday as he read psalm 19, that reading the bible is like gaining gold, much pure gold. but the words that stood out to me from that psalm were

they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

verse 10

honey. we like honey at our house. we go through a lot of it. i put it in my crazy homemade yogurt. and when you pour honey, you almost always drip a little somewhere. on my finger. i love that little lick of honey. that little bit of sweet. well, i just like sweets anyway. nice ones. in fact, i must confess that were i not preoccupied with many other things, i might actually think that all of life was about the search for the one perfect sweet. ina garten’s lemon pound cake. tiramisu in florence. superb chocolate. preferably dark. the best apple pie ever…served hot, with blue bell vanilla ice cream on top. we have a couple of cakes in our family that get really close to perfect. i also have great love for cookies. peanut butter with chocolate chunks. anna and i have been on a hunt for the perfect gingersnap this fall. or my standby…good old chocolate chip, loaded with pecans, hot out of the oven, still a little doughy. and a glass of milk. i can taste it.

taste.

sweet.

honey.

taste and see that the LORD is good. psalm 34:8

how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! psalm 119:103

so that’s where i’m heading this week. i started the journey with fellow fellowship northers on monday. and i’m in for the early morning experience that is the ultimate comfort food. i won’t even get a stomachache from overindulging, like the oh too many times i’ve eaten too many cookies.