When discussing with Brett what my main focus for this blog should be he suggested a blog about green smoothies or skin care.  Just for fun, I will share what little I know about both!

Green Smoothies:  I first started drinking green smoothies about six years ago.  I drank them almost daily about a year ago when I just got tired of them and have switched exclusively to juicing for breakfast.  I occasionally throw in a green smoothie, but they are much different than they used to be.  I used to make green smoothies with many ingredients.  And I would make myself drink them even if they tasted awful.  The awful tasting ones had way too much kale or arugula.  I usually put in several different kinds of fruit, greens and some nuts or seeds.  Now when I make my smoothies I put in one kind of fruit and one kind of green add a little water and blend.  These smoothies taste much better and are easier to drink and not so heavy as the ones where I insisted on adding what I have now discovered was just too many things.

That is pretty much my experience with green smoothies and my recommendation to anyone who wants to start drinking them is just to make them simple.  They taste better and are easier to digest.  A packet or two of stevia can really enhance the flavor as well.  I also recommend starting with lettuce or spinach as two mild tasting greens.  I recommend leaving kale for other people to eat!  Just kidding.  Kale’s strong taste is best covered by bananas in my opinion.

Skin Care:  Where to start?!  I looked like a teenager well into my 30’s.  In fact, when I was 40 and pregnant with Aspen, I took my 20-year-old daughter with me clothes shopping.  Several times when I checked out the clerk asked if this was my first baby.  I always said, “No, this is my last.”  And then I would point to my daughter next to me and say, “This was my first.”  Now that I think about it I got that question quite often from store clerks.

Needless to say I didn’t give good skin care a whole lot of thought until I hit about 45 and things started to head south.  Not to be out done by old age I researched what I could do on a budget to slow down the aging process.  I have discovered facial exercise to be immensely helpful in restoring the muscles of the face to their proper places.  To be specific I have tried three facial exercise programs and use parts of all three of them.  “FlexEffect” is a great comprehensive program that works all of the facial muscles as well as including bone massage to keep the facial bones from losing their original shape.  “Ageless if You Dare” is most effective for the cheek muscles.  I had already faithfully been using the FlexEffect program and enjoying the results when I started the “Agless if You Dare” program and was surprised how quickly my cheek muscles responded.  Also the neck exercise worked very quickly.  “Facercise” was the first facial exercise program I tried.  I like it and occasionally use some of the lower face exercises to enhance the effects of the above two programs.

If you are interested in facial exercise, you just need to try various things and see what works for you.  I have played around with facial exercise for a couple of years now so I am beginning to see how the various exercises affect my facial muscles.

A quick five-minute facial massage called “Tanaka” can be found on YouTube.  It is a lymphatic drainage massage and creates a small instant lift.  My daughter, who is 26 and writes a food blog, occasionally posts pictures of herself with her newest creations.  She has told me that she does not do a photo shoot without first doing Tanaka massage!

I hope you have found the above information useful and helpful and may your New Year be healthy and beautiful.

Brett and I decided to be host parents to two Chinese boys attending school here for second semester.  Boy number one arrived with his mother a few days ago.  Tonight we met them at their hotel and went to dinner with them at The Cracker Barrel.  They did not speak a lot of English, but enough that we carried on a good conversation with them and learned many things about China.

The mom apologized for her stuttering English.  I told her I had taken a year of Spanish class once and after the year was over I could understand quite a bit, read Spanish pretty good, but I could hardly get a word out.

Have you ever felt that way when it comes to God or witnessing?  Initially, when you learn a new language, there is a lot of listening to others who use that language and trying to understand what they say.   That can be true about spiritual things as well.  Religious talk has its own vocabulary.  Early on I think people listen to what Christians say and try to understand it.  It takes a bit to catch on to all the catch phrases.

Then you start reading, and though it can be hard at first to understand, the more you read and study the Bible, the deeper your understanding grows.  There comes a point where you can clearly understand “Christianese” language and read the Bible and religious books with understanding.

However, when it comes to speaking or talking about Jesus, many of us seem to struggle and stutter like our new friend from China does with English.  I believe what is true for her is true for us as well.  Her English will get better and better the more she practices using English and submerges herself in English culture.  We, too, will get better and better with, not only understanding of Christianity, but also our ability to talk openly about Jesus.  By the way, it’s OK if you start out stuttering, Moses stuttered–a lot–and God used him to part the Red Sea.  So go ahead and stutter if need be, just don’t give up talking about Jesus.  Who knows what oceans God has for you to part and lead people to Him.

The snow fell in big fluffy flakes again today.  Aspen convinced Daddy he wanted to go outside and play with her.  He took out some of her trains and track and they built roads until Daddy got tired and came inside for a nap.  Aspen stayed outside and continued to dig in the snow for a while longer.  I finally convinced her to come inside and eat.  Next we put the large princess castle wall mural she received for Christmas on her bedroom wall.  She wanted to wake up Daddy to show him, but I convinced her to let him sleep awhile longer.

She still wanted to play more so in an effort to not be drafted to go outside in the cold, I told her to find one of her games.  She went to her playroom and brought out her Candyland game.  We played about five rounds of the game then moved on to playing indoor golf.  Finally she tired of golf and we began the game of Hide and Seek.  What a fun game, she laughed and squealed when she found me or I found her.   When she tired of playing Hide and Seek, I expected her to want to play something else, but instead she said, “Mom, I’m tired of playing with you, I think I’ll do something else for a while.”  I felt like a worn out, over-played with, now useless toy.  I was rejected for something more fun.

I wondered if that is how my Father in heaven feels when I get tired of living how He wants me to live and move on to something that looks like it will provide me with more fun and excitement.  Or maybe I just decided to make a choice that seemed more reasonable that living all out for God. 

Take the Israelites for example, they could have entered the promised land, but they chose not to because they were too afraid of the giants.  Contrast that with Daniel who could have reasonably chosen to avoid doing something that caused him to be thrown into the den of lions.  But, he chose to serve God 100% and he ended up spending the night with the lions.  It must have been a long night even in the presence of God’s saving power, but in the morning he was lifted out of the pit. 

Even Jesus himself chose to serve His Father rather than avoid death on the cross.  He chose to die for me, what will I do for Him?

The day after Christmas Aspen watched the Veggie Tale movie, “Madame Blueberry.”  After watching the movie she walked up to me and asked, “Mommy, how come every time I get a new toy, I think I’m going to be happy, but I’m not?  And how come Madame Blueberry isn’t happy with all the stuff she has?”  I told her stuff doesn’t make people happy.  The only way to be truly happy is to be good friends with Jesus. 

This morning while drinking my freshly juiced vegetables I realized I hadn’t put my usual packet of stevia in it.  Since I had thrown a lime in the juicer it tasted tart without the sweetener.  I drank about half of it before I gathered the motivation to get off the couch and walk into the kitchen to pour a packet of stevia into the juice.  I stirred it briskly and took another sip.  My taste buds sparkled and I sat down to finish my juice with a new attitude of happiness.

The only difference between enjoying my juice or enduring it was the sweetener.   I can choose to trudge through my life or I can let the Holy Spirit add His sweetness to my life and live in the joy that only He can provide.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

You love Him even though you have never seen Him. Though you do not see Him now, you trust Him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.  The reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of your souls.  1 Peter 1:8,9

 This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:24

I am the youngest cousin on my mom’s side of the family.  Growing up I heard quite a few tales of my older cousins wild escapades.  I was a naturally cautious child. Introverted and painfully shy would have been two accurate descriptions of me.   In school I listened to the teacher, turned my home work in on time and studied to get good grades.  I never quite understood how other people thrived on the excitement  breaking the rules.  I spent my years as a child wanting to be good and for the most part that has carried over into most of my adult choices.

I remember my mom telling me a story about how my cousins wouldn’t bother to register a car, they would just take the plates off another car and put it on their newest acquisition.  I was somewhat appalled.  After all, that was directly breaking the law and what would happen if they got pulled over by the police?  I’m sure if any of them were to read this they would laugh at my naiveté.

My husband actually drove his car for over two years with expired plates.  The one time a police officer pulled us over he didn’t seem to notice the expired plates. Then came the day when I started driving with expired tags!  I couldn’t believe I was doing something so “dangerous”.  Yes, I’m sure you are laughing at me.  I didn’t plan for it to happen.  I knew my tags would expire in a couple of months so I began all the necessary paperwork a couple of months ahead of the expiration date.

We had moved to a new state and it required more paperwork than I had needed previously in other states.  For starters I needed my title, which of course I couldn’t find.  After a couple of false starts I determined my original title was in Alaska.  It shouldn’t have been so hard to figure out, after all that is where I bought the car.  But, that is when the fun began.  I messed up the paperwork at least five times and by the time I sent it to them and they sent it back to me and I took it to the bank to be notarized again I did not get my title in time to renew my tags before they expired.  So I began driving my car with expired tags.  I managed to get away with it about four and a half months.  Then came the fateful day when I saw the flashing red lights in my rear view mirror.   Busted. I pulled over and much to my dismay my expired plates were  taken and my car towed home all while it poured down rain in buckets.

As you know, a title is proof of ownership.  Since I now had the title, I took it to the DMV who would not register my car without my ex-husband signing off on the title.  This should not have been a problem as the title clearly stated either his name “or” my name in ownership rather than “and”, but they were insistent.  The car was clearly mine as the divorce papers stated, but I literally went into the DMV four times with the finished required paperwork they had given me the time before and each time they gave me more paperwork to be signed.

Today, when I finally walked out of the DMV with my temporary tags, I literally squealed in delight.  I am no longer driving a car with expired tags.  Ok, so I have one more confession to make: Since my car had no plates and my husband’s car broke down about a month ago while we were in the process of trying to finish the paperwork to register my car, he took one of the plates off of his car and put it on the back of my car.  I was even more appalled to be doing exactly what I thought of as a child as being the type of law-breaker I would never become, ever.

Now that I have correctly tagged my car, I am no longer a law-breaker.  I have rejoined the ranks of law-abiding citizens.  I felt a little like I had finally been accepted into the “club”.  Brett, on the other hand, is still wandering the dark lands on the other side of the fence as he endeavors to do our taxes. (Uhm, Brett added that last sentence, I’m not sure how doing the taxes has anything to do with finally driving legally, but maybe all the paperwork has rattled his brain.)

I am so thankful that joining the family of God, does not require so much work.  God accepts us when we come to Him the first time.  He does not require more “paperwork”.  In fact, He has already done all the “paper work” and is even willing to give us a down payment on the title of our hearts! Certainly you have heard Paul say:

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:13-15

God wants us to know for certain that we belong to Him and have eternal life NOW, that He gives us the Holy Spirit as evidence for our faith that we belong to Him.  So if you have the Holy Spirit working with you, have no doubt or fear, you are a child of the King and have already begun to live eternally…no signatures required.

I love plenty of house plants to help keep the air clean.  We have about a dozen large plants and several small ones scattered throughout the house.  Some of them drink water as if they lived in the desert, while some of the others seem to just need a few sips to keep from turning brown.  In the process of trying to keep up with the watering needs of the plants I occasionally don’t water as often as I should.

When I don’t give the plants enough water their leaves begin to turn brown and eventually they fall off.  Just this morning I gathered a handful of leaves that had dropped from one of my plants.

I realized that when I don’t keep my spiritual life fully watered the natural consequences are that I will begin to lose some of my good spiritual attributes.  If I want to be a loving, sharing, kind, and thoughtful person, I need to consistently drink from the well of the word of God.

Soft music filtered into Richard’s consciousness.  He rolled over and hit the snooze button, just a few more minutes and he would get up for coffee.   The whisper of soft music brought Richard to consciousness again.  He crawled out of bed annoyed at Jane for not starting the coffee like she usually did in the early morning hours.  Memory cells sparked to life, Jane was half way across the country caring for her sick mother,  if he wanted coffee he would need to make it himself.

Richard wiped the drool off his chin and staggered out to the kitchen.  He squinted and fumbled for the bag of coffee.  His eyes still half closed he dumped a large scoop of coffee into the filter.  Relief and anticipation escaped his lips in a sigh as he pushed the button and the water trickled through the machine into his cup.  Three packets of sugar and a generous splash of cream later he slurped the scalding liquid.  Running the back of his hand over his eyes he glared at the watery white mixture in his cup.  Wide awake Richard picked up the bag of coffee.  Only Jane would buy whole coffee beans.  Slamming cupboard doors he looked for the coffee grinder.  Truth be told he didn’t even know what it looked like.

After writing the above Richard parable I got up from the computer and peeked into the master bedroom.  I asked my husband if he wanted me to prepare him breakfast since fixing breakfast for the kids and juicing for myself came next on my mental list of things to do.  I could not believe my ears when I heard him ask for my special garlic concoction to help him get over his cold.  Occasionally, when Brett gets sick, I make him a freshly blended conglomeration of a clove of fresh garlic, fresh squeezed lime juice, a small amount of orange juice, honey, and a splash of olive oil blended in the Magic Bullet.  He doesn’t really like it so I know he is feeling desperate to get better when he actually asks for it without my asking him if he would like some.  Most of the time he turns me down, even though it works!

I stepped into the kitchen with my list of things to accomplish; Brett wanted garlic, Aspen and Colby wanted eggs and tater tots and I would make juice for myself.  I put the tater tots in the toaster oven, and opened the fridge for the carrots and greens to make my juice.  I pulled the Magic Bullet out of the cupboard and proceeded to make Brett’s garlic concoction.  I usually squeeze the limes by hand, but since I was making juice in the juicer anyway,  I decided to run the lime through the juicer.

I dropped the lime in and pushed the plunger down.  The sound it emitted concerned me, it was not its usual hard at work sound, in fact it sounded a little whiny.  But, it spit out some lime juice and after I checked to make sure I had the lid on securely I figured everything was fine.  After blending the garlic concoction I moved on to making my juice.  I put in another lime and some carrots, turned it on and proceeded to try to push the carrots down the hatch.  The juicer made a noise, but once again not the one I was used to hearing.  This time juice did not pour forth from the spout.  I was worried my juicer had up and quit on me the day before Christmas!  I took the carrots and lime out and proceeded to take the lid off the juicer.  I groaned at my absent-mindedness when I saw that I had failed to put the extractor that spins around and separates the juice from the pulp, into the juicer.  After putting the juicer back together it dawned on me that Richard and I had just started our day in much the same way, with a moment of stupidity.

I am thankful God does not love only the smart, beautiful and good.  Despite my moments of stupidity and absent-mindedness, I know He loves me just as much as everyone else.  I know this because He is my Father.  Some fathers play favorites, but God doesn’t.  He truly loves everyone with the same intensity.  He loves us so much He sent His son Jesus to this world as a baby, to grow up in a poor carpenters family, and then die on a cross between two criminals.

He sent His perfect son to die for my stupid mistakes.  The only thing I can do for Him is fall face down at the foot of the cross and ask for forgiveness and help to overcome my stupidity.  Only the love of my Father in heaven can overcome my  thoughtless stubbornness in persisting to wallow in my mindless stupidity.  Only He can pick me up out of the muddy pit and plant me in the fertile ground of His love.  Only when I am planted in His love, will His love be drawn up through my newly developed roots to strengthen my heart and mind to live out the same love He has for me, for others.

How many things in your life have you wanted to do but haven’t?  You probably even had, or maybe still have, very good reasons for not doing whatever it is you wanted to do but didn’t.  I know I have a few…ok, a lot.  I could give you a lot of really believable and absolutely practical not to mention logical reasons for the things I haven’t tried in my life, but it would, to quote a better writer than me, “taste of a lie.’ The truth, as you already know, is that fear generally keeps us from taking the risks to try new things.  There are times when this can be a good thing I guess.  There was that time I wanted to build a submarine out of an old natural gas tank for a summer camp skit and put my best friend in it…30ft under water.  Actually I think it was the camp director that put a stop to that and not fear, but you know what I mean.

You know what really doesn’t make any sense at all (besides my submarine idea)?  That we ever allow fear to keep us from doing something especially if we have a pretty good idea that it’s something God brought us into.  There is a virtual plethora of promises God has given telling us not to be afraid because He will always be with us.  He has given us stories that show Him doing exactly He promises; Moses and Pharaoh, Joshua and Jericho, David and Goliath, the list goes on!  Everyone had something or someone to fear, a boogeyman if you will.  But, as Bob and Larry say, God is bigger than the boogeyman, and anything in our lives that makes us afraid.

In today’s modern and sophisticated world you and I probably aren’t looking down the shaft of a giant spear, being chased by an Egyptian army, or shut out by insurmountable walls.  But sometimes we do feel shut out, we might be chased by a past we can’t seem to escape or confronted with things that seem way bigger than we are.  For me it’s failure.  I’m afraid to fail.  I know there are all kinds of psychological and emotional reasons behind it all that I can work through with therapy and perhaps some meditation.  Or I can take God at His word, step out in faith, and know that even if i misstep or even fall, it’s not the end of the world.  My worth is not measured by the sum total of my successes and failures.  My worth is measured by how loved I am.  Now the God of the universe took time out of eternity to create me, He gave His son’s life for me, and has the angels doing construction on a home He designed with me in mind.  I don’t care how I fail in this world, nothing can make God love me any more or less than He already does.  In fact, knowing what all my failures would be, Jesus still chose me and my eternal joy over His own or haven’t you heard, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

So where is all this going? Simply this: I’m going to make a movie.  Theatre is something I have no doubt God put in my life.  Though it’s crazy, there are things I haven’t tried to do with theatre because I was afraid of how much it would cost, how much time it would take, all the “Jericho walls” that would prevent me from finishing…basically fearing failure.  No more, I am going to step, no, run into the terrifying adventure of creating a film.  I’ve no idea about what but I’m not going to allow little details like that to slow me down.  I’m going to dive in to the depths of this sea with the life vest of God’s promise He will never leave me alone.

Now understand, I don’t tell you this so you’ll be impressed.  I imagine my first film will have all the aesthetics of a monkey with a camera.  I tell you all this to challenge you.  What has fear kept you from?  What adventure, risk, open door, whatever you want to call it, have you turned away from because of fear?  Say, “No more!”  Let God deal with the walls, the armies and the giants.  You need not fight those battles, as God has said, the battles belong to Him.  The giants will fall, the walls will crumble and the seas will part when you walk through them by faith.  Why?  Because when you walk by faith your walking with the God of the universe, and nothings bigger than Him.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Deut. 31:6

Colby took the bus home for Christmas break.  He had two, three-hour lay-overs.  One in Nashville and the other in Knoxville.  After that it was pretty much a straight shot from Knoxville to Washington, DC.  He wasn’t real happy with the long lay overs.  From his point of view they were a waste of his time and so incredibly boring.  He just wanted to get back on the bus and keep moving towards his destination.      

Life has lay-overs.  Sometimes no doubt they come from God when He keeps us in a place longer than anticipated.  Other times our lay-overs are of our own making.  We seem to get a little mixed up in our reaction to both types of life’s layovers.  When God has us someplace a little longer than we would like, He generally means to use it as a learning experience.  But, we usually want to move on from our spiritual lay-over as soon as possible. 

On the other hand, we don’t seem to have a problem at all with our own man-made layovers.  We stop and dawdle over some useless distraction when we should be moving on up the path, or even worse, get comfortable and settled.  God wants to move us out of our lay-overs as soon as possible.  If we are in a God provided lay over for a character  building experience, I’m sure He would like it if we just learned what we needed to learn and moved on.   When He see’s us in our own man-made layover, He calls to us to move forward with Him.  He knows if we wait for too long at our own personal attraction, or settle into a pattern or rut, we may never move on at all.

I personally don’t believe the Christian life is a call to a safe, comfortable and settled life.  Christianity isn’t meant to just make us, “good people.”  The disciples were not simply “good folks.”  The early Christian church families were more than “nice neighbors.”  They were people on fire.  They loved openly and cared passionately.  They were so motivated by Jesus that governments considered them dangerous.  That doesn’t sound like a safe and settled life to me. 

Now I’m not saying that every one of us needs to be missionaries in the dark jungles of Africa or work in frontier missions.  But there are dark places all around us, in our schools, neighborhoods, work places, even our own friends and families.  We are called, each of us, to be a light in the dark places around us.  Sometimes God has us in a layover to prepare us to be that light, or maybe–just maybe–He’s waiting for us to get turned on and shine in the place He has us.

Brett braced himself and punched in the number to the car repair shop to inquire about the cost of repairs on his only six-year-old Subaru Baja.  They calmly delivered the bad news: $4000 just for the parts.  He is finally done with his car.  We have put more money in repairs in the six years we have had it than we have spent on repairing my Rav4 in the 15 years I have been driving it.  Less than a year ago we poured over a thousand dollars in repairs into it and decided to use the logic that eventually it would have all new parts and would quit breaking down.  Besides Brett felt bad about selling a worthless car to an unsuspecting buyer.

Today we discussed sprucing up the Rav a little.  After five years in the Las Vegas sun the paint has seriously faded on the hood and roof.  Besides a new coat of paint it needs a new set of spark plugs and it could use some new wheels since after 15 years they have begun to show their age with some rust.  Brett doesn’t mind putting some money into the Rav, but he is miffed about all the money down the drain on a car that was just paid off a year ago.

I told him that this is a great character building experience.  He agreed that it was, but in a slightly grumpy voice said, “But, I don’t want to have this character building experience.”  I know exactly how he feels.  I just had a character building experience at the mall Thursday evening.  I found a pair of winter gloves that actually fit my small hands and since they were marked down to half off I decided to buy them.  I walked up to the counter where the sales girl proceeded to ignore me while she played around with the cash register.  I’m relatively patient so I stood there and waited while holding onto my gloves.  A man who also had a pair of gloves he wanted to purchase walked up behind me.  Apparently he got tired of waiting and tossed his gloves past me onto the counter, no doubt hoping the sales clerk would just automatically pick them up and ring them up thinking they were mine.  Needless to say my patience disappeared in an instant.  I’d rather not admit that I walked off and left the gloves I wanted to buy at the store.  I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t at that moment say something without being rude.

I don’t doubt that God will provide as many character building opportunities as I need til I finally get it right.  At which point in time He will just start working on smoothing out another character flaw.  1 Corinthians tells us to take every thought captive so that it is obedient to Christ.  I know that I can change my thought patterns because I have done so in the past.  If I’m thinking a thought I know I shouldn’t be I make a plan to think something else immediately.  Eventually after a few months the new thought has taken over and the old thought has disappeared.  But, from personal experience to take every single un-Christlike thought captive and immediately become obedient certainly seems like an impossibility.  But, the Bible tells us that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to resist.  If we practice staying in His presence He will provide us with a peace which transcends all understanding and it will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:7)

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.Romans 12:1,2

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  Romans 5:1-5