Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Recipe for Snowballs!

After many requests I am sharing with you one of my tastiest Christmas memories. If you decide to make my Grandma's snowballs this year, please say a prayer for her, Mamie Smith. She is in a nursing home and so ready to go to heaven. :) She married Papa (Elmer) on Christmas Day. They eloped! Boy, would I like to have the rest of that story!! And wouldn't it be great it they could spend Christmas together? Papa went to heaven December 1995.

Recipe for Snowballs...
1 stick of butter, softened (forget that you did this)
1 cup of sugar (better forget this too)
1 small can of crushed pineapple undrained
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 cup finely chopped dates
1 package butter cookies
2 tubs cool whip (or other whipped topping)
cocunut

To make the yumminess: Cream sugar and butter together until smooth. Stir together pineapple, dates and nuts, add to sugar mixture and stir well. Cover cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Place butter cookies about 3 inches apart on cookie sheet. Alternate a layer of yumminess with butter cookies until you have stacked yumminess between 3 butter cookies (3 cookies, 2 layers of yumminess). Cover cookies stackes with cool whip, then sprinkle with cocunut. Place in freezer for at least 3 hours. Voila!! ENJOY!
I know from experience they will save til summer. But the health department would most likely not recommend that. :)

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Boundaries and Barbed Wire


If you've been reading my blog for the past several months you know that I'm praying through the darkest valley of my life (thus far). In this valley I've learned that the battle I'm fighting really has two fronts. One is the obvious one with the circumstances that are breaking my heart and the other is with God.

That's right...my spiritual warfare includes my own personal struggle in my relationship with God. I'm not struggling with loving Him. Nor do I struggle with serving Him. But I do struggle with His sovereignty in this situation.

Every step of the way I've defined the reasonable boundaries of the other battle front. For instance I tell God what lines the Enemy must not be allowed to cross. I started doing this in June. But soon after I defined the boundary line, the Enemy crossed it. I was devestated. Then, last month I defined the boundary with a deadline. The Enemy blasted over that boundary too.

Today I'm tempted to define two more boundary lines. My struggle with God has been unnecessarily magnified by these boundary lines. Once I define the boundaries I decide that I know better than God how much is too much and how long is too long. When I do that I totally disregard God's Word in Isaiah 55:9

"As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

The boundaries I construct become like barbed wire. They hem me in when I pray. I camp out just this side of them and spend much of my energy begging God to keep them strong. Thus far, those boundaries have been blatantly disregarded by the Enemy and when he plows through them he drags me behind him. Often I'm left on the other side of that barbed wire bleeding and wounded wondering where God was when I just got taken further than I ever wanted to go into the depths of this valley.

But today, I've decided to stop marking off the territory. I'm finally ready to say to God--wherever You want to go; and whatever You want to do, take me there and do that. As the heavens are higher than the earth so are Your ways higher than mine and Your thoughts higher than my thoughts.

You know what You're up to and I trust you."