Coconut Curry Butternut Squash

I made this soup today! 

I found this recipe on Pinterest and am really pleased with the results. Some things I would like to try differently would be to use a cup or so less of chicken stock and maybe add more squash to make the soup thicker. ...oh and remember to hold the lid on the blender down :P

The contents of my afternoon...

A Little Gem

Yesterday evening a good friend and I had the privilege of having tea with an older woman from our church. We met her in the adult Sunday school class where we were reading through Titus 2. When we were discussing the passage and came across the part where it talked about the older women teaching the younger women she asked: "Do the younger women even want to spend time with the older women?" My friend and I answered with a resounding "YES!". Thus leading us to the tea, pie and good conversation of last night. Our new friend shared with us a few pages from her devotional book. How sweet it is to be taught by someone with so much life experience and so much knowledge of the things of God. She sent us each home with a poem she had come across and though the words are simple they spoke volumes to my heart.

JESUS, I like what I am because

It was Your idea

Help me to find adventure

In my uniqueness, and not want to be 

What someone else is.

GOD, if I lose sight of the fun of 

Being me, then

Your dream of what I can be in

The world will die,

Always help me to remember

That this is Your way

Of being creative.

-Author unknown

Something worth posting about..

When I'm feeling sick or tired or... really anything negative, I can usually boil it down to stress. I know I am not the only person who allows themselves to get "stressed out" over...well...anything. At times I tend to make big things out of very little, insignificant things that end up causing much unnecessary stress and worry. My challenge to myself and to anyone else out there who tends to allow holding onto stress and worry unnecessarily get them down is this:

LET. IT. GO.

When I was in college I often found myself stressing out and making big deals of nothing. A close friend of mine would remind me to let go of the things I was allowing to hold me back and to give my worries to the Lord. She would make two fists as if holding onto whatever it was, take in a deep breath, and as she let it out she would open her hands and lift the worries up to God. It is something I remember often when I have a chance to be still and realize that the things I'm stressing about are only holding me back and crippling me and that it is time to let it go. 

Easy to say? YES. But really, for myself, I see it as a chance to be brave and face the day head on. When I do this being joyful (not happy, anyone can do that), comes naturally. So really, I think letting some things go is a lot easier than we often allow ourselves to think. So what if you broke a glass at breakfast. Is that really what is ruining your day? Or is it your choice to decide that a broken glass can decide for you how the day will pan out. Really, it's not YOUR day. I mean, if you are a Christ Follower, it's not your day; it's His, so let us use it wisely. Here's to not wasting His time. 

Matthew 6:25-34

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.

 Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they?

 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 

And why do you worry about clothes? 

See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, 

which is here to day and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, 

will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, 

and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. 

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, 

and all these things wil be given to you as well. 

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own."