Encouraging Deep Roots

Last week consisted of decorating, baking, studying,  jam-making, cleaning, Bible study, Zoom meetings, preaching, an outreach event, and all sorts of other activities both at home and in ministry. Ministry is kind of an eclectic thing around here and there are many ups and downs. I love every moment of it, but it's not always a bed of roses. Lest anyone think it's all excitment let me share a bit of what ministry is like, at least in my world.  ---> It's vacuuming up crumbs after little ones. ---> It's putting out weekly fires. ---> There are high points, but there are also many low points. ---> It's driving an hour away to purchase kitchen supplies for an upcoming dinner. ---> It's plunging toilets in the middle of an outreach event. Yes, that actually happened on Saturday. We open up our building for people to come and use the bathrooms, get warm, and get cookies and hot cocoa during the city's annual Christmas parade). It was at that momen...

  Christmas preparations are in full swing here and the snow is setting the mood as I prepare. I finished decorating our house this week, started making a couple of batches of cookies for an event this weekend, purchased tickets for The Nutcracker next weekend and braved the cold to get some exercise. I blame my front porch sign for all of the snow. 😀 I've been working on a message for Sunday about Mary's reaction to the message that the angel, Gabriel, brought to her. Her reaction was acceptance and humble submission to God's plan for her life. I want to accept the things God has for me, but I fear that I often fight against it.  It's been a good season to reflect on these things.  I cohosted a gathering of women from around the globe early yesterday morning and I'm thankful for my role on the team that put it together. Just when I'm tempted to complain about something (including getting up early to have a meeting), I see women who are up in the middle of the ...

This is the season when time seems to speed up and we cram as much activity as we can into each day. However, I want to savor the time this year as we go through the month of December and enjoy each moment. So I'm going to start by pausing to give thanks for all the many blessings of the past week. If I don't intentionally look for the abundance in my life, then I can very easily give way to complaining about the lack. I'm trying to be better about being grateful for the little things in my life.  💓I love baking and making food from scratch and I'm thankful for a mom and grandmother who taught me how to do that. 💓 Seasonal favorites.   💓 My Thanksgiving plans got changed, but we had a really nice day despite the weather and different plan. 💓 We still were able to have my father-in-law and daughter and son-in-law over on a different day and celebrate a mini-version of Thanksgiving.  💓 We got my father-in-law down our stairs (took three of us), but he was able to wat...

Thanksgiving ended up being a very nice day even though it was cold and blustery.  It was peaceful and relaxing and I even got to watch parts of the Macy's Day Thanksgiving parade which I haven't done in years. It was cozy and warm in the house while the lake effect snow machine churned outside. I braved the weather and went for a walk and the snow was beautiful. It went from coming down gently to whiteout conditions in less than a minute so it was the right decision not to go get my father-in-law and for my daughter and son-in-law to not come. It's still snowing and that is supposed to continue on and off until early tomorrow morning so it'll be another quiet day. Today I will be decorating the house for Christmas and Advent begins on Sunday. I love everything about the holidays and am looking forward to the next few weeks. Dan and I are sharing the messages at church through Christmas and as I've dug into the passages I'm speaking on it's been so good. No ...

I've spent the past two days in the kitchen, preparing family favorites for tomorrow's feast. I was looking forward to having my daughter and son-in-law here, as well as my father-in-law. A lake effect storm has changed all those plans. We are not going to be able to pick up my father-in-law who lives an hour away and my daughter and her husband changed their plans so they wouldn't have to drive in the height of the storm. They are headed further south to his parent's house instead. I'm surprisingly okay with all of this. Of course, I'm disappointed, but I'm learning to hold my plans loosely. I put two of the pies in the freezer and will have a less hectic day tomorrow.  In the past, I would have really had a hard time with all of this and would have felt quite dejected. However, there is nothing that can be done about it and I can spend tomorrow being sad about who isn't there and make the day miserable, or I can pivot and enjoy a quieter holiday. I cho...

Thanksgiving week is here and it's one of my favorite times of the year.  As I'm working through my menu and what last minute things I need to pick up at the store, I'm also keeping my eye on the weather report. Living near one of the Great Lakes is unpredictable and it went from being fairly nice on Thursday to now having a lake effect storm watch happening overnight.  That is going to frustrate me if it comes to fruition as I know my father-in-law was so happy that he was coming to our house for Thanksgiving. I'm praying that the weather holds off until Thursday night so we can go get him and get him back to his place. The particular area we have to travel through to get him can be bad during these storms.  In the meantime, I'm going to carry on as planned. I'm thankful for so many things this week.  💓I'm thankful for my love of cooking and baking. It makes the preparation enjoyable. I put my pie pumpkins in the oven yesterday to roast. It makes it so muc...