Juni Desiree's beautiful art and heart

 This is a section from a future post, which shows this painting I once did:

This was my favorite one, the first one I ever painted like this.  

And it graced my wall for a few years... until I gave it away to a dear online friend from Australia, Juni Desiree (we met online in the comment section of a blog she used to have).  It was the only way to say "thank you" for something amazing she did for me: dedicating to me a book she published of pictures she drew about her mental health journey.  

Here's a YouTube video on it: The Art of Mental Health: Book Launch!!!! (at 5:04 you can see the "Dedication: For Heather" page"😊), and here's where you can buy it: The Art of Mental Health Ebook - Etsy Australia.  

Hardest Spiritual Lesson #5: Just do your job

Finally, another "hardest spiritual lesson."  And the rest are coming up over the next several posts.

Obediently Doing Your Job and Letting God Do His

Okay now, be honest and raise your hand if you like to lead instead of follow?  To push through with your plans and make things happen?  To set your own rules and goals?  To follow your dreams?  To stand in the spotlight? 

Our world values go-getters and leaders - people who succeed, who make the impossible possible, who dream big dreams and make them come true.  It doesn’t put much value on people who shine the spotlight on someone else, who spend their lives in service to someone else, who work quietly in the background, or who follow and obey what someone else tells them to do.  It doesn’t respect submission, obedience, and following, not nearly as much as it does autonomy, self-reliance, and leading.  

And so the world can’t really understand or value Christians who live for the Lord.  

But God does.

A Calvinist pastor's 9-11 sermons (vs. C.S. Lewis)

In "honor" of the anniversary of 9-11, I thought I'd share on my blogs some quotes from my Calvinist ex-pastor's sermons about 9-11 or around the anniversary of 9-11.  

I'm so sorry to share these.  Please don't read them if you were greatly hurt by 9-11, or any other tragedy.  (And speaking of tragedy: It's absolutely horrible and heartbreaking that Charlie Kirk was assassinated.  It's just so senseless.  It's not like he was a powerful political leader who made laws or rules that people didn't like or that affected their families or anything like that.  He was just a normal guy who debated views and shared his opinions - opinions that some people didn't like.  And for that someone killed him!?!  Something isn't right here.  May God expose what it is, and bring about justice, and protect and care for his family.  My heart goes out to them!  Heartbreaking!)  

But these 9-11 sermons are great examples of how hyper-focused Calvinists can be on God's "sovereignty," to the point that they can't even hear how heartless and tone-deaf (and unbiblical!) they sound about a horrible tragedy that destroyed many people and families and that greatly wounded our country.  (And I admit that it's sickening timing to share these sermons right after Charlie was killed, because these Calvinist sermons are all about God ordaining all evils and tragedies.  Ugh.😔)  

Calvinists can't even comprehend - or don't care about - the damage they might be doing to someone's faith in God.  All they can think about is that they are supposedly glorifying God by singing the praises of His "sovereign control" and encouraging others to do the same, regardless of the tragedy that happened.  (And they wonder why Calvinism makes people sick!)

My goal here is not to sling mud or to break people's hearts or shake people's faith, but it's to expose Calvinism for the anti-gospel, anti-truth, anti-God theology that it is.  My goal is to wake people up and, yes, to be divisive - to do what I can to cut out a cancer that's invaded the church and is slowly killing it.  Calvinism has hijacked our churches for far too long, and it needs to be stopped.  But it can't be stopped if we keep ignoring it or politely tolerating it.  And so I keep writing and sharing these things.  [God, help us!  What a mess the Church has become!]

[My comments are in brackets, black, and italics.]  

Late Summer for Gardeners

I haven't been able to get around to publishing any real posts lately because I've been so busy with other things... and right now, it's been shredding and freezing zucchini (or making zucchini bread and zucchini fritters) and canning homemade pickles and tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes and pickled peppers... and then busy cleaning up all the zucchini-pickle-tomato-pepper messes all over the kitchen... not to mention, giving away bags of fresh cucumbers and green beans because we're getting too many and can't possibly eat them all (I find it crazy that three of my kids hate fresh green beans - where'd I go wrong?😕)... and then doing it all over again just a little while later.

It's been like the movie Groundhog Day, endlessly repeating the same day over and over again, except with vegetables!

And so, just for fun - and because I can't get around to writing real posts - here's something that all you gardeners out there might enjoy right about now.  I feel this one:

Hardest Spiritual Lesson #4: Thankfulness

Being Truly, Humbly, Actively Thankful

Luke 17:15-18:  “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan.  Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed?  Where are the other nine?  Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’”

Ten men were healed.  Only one came back to thank Jesus.

Did the other nine say in their hearts, “Oh, I’m sure He knows I am thankful.  I don’t have to actually go find Him and say it out loud.  Besides, I’m too busy enjoying the blessing, the healing.  Isn’t that thanks enough?”

Did they get so distracted by their joy of being healed that they simply forgot there was a Healer who made it possible?

Did they feel a sense of entitlement to the healing, that God somehow owed it to them?  “It’s about time!”  And so they didn’t feel like they had to thank Him because they were just getting what they deserved all along?

Jill 4 Today: "Around the world in 80 breads"

While researching bread-baking around the world, I stumbled on this YouTube channel - Jill 4 Today - and I just have to say that I'm really enjoying her.  A lot of fun to watch.  And I love when older women do videos like these because it feels very homey, very grandmotherly.   

I'm especially interested in her new series "Around the world in 80 breads."  And I love it that she makes some of these breads for the first time on camera, leaving in the doubts and mistakes and all.  Amusing and charming.

Anyway, I'd love for her to actually do all 80 breads, but she doesn't think she'll get to them all.  So if anyone else is interested in this too, support her channel and send her some comments to encourage her to actually do all 80.  It'd be fun to see.

Here are the three breads she's done so far:

#1 No-knead French bread

#2 Icelandic Rye Bread (just listening to their reactions as they eat it makes me want to try it too)

#3 German Broetchen Rolls  

It's a long way to 80, but it would be a fun journey getting there!

Sourdough Sandwich Bread Recipes and Videos

My son recently got a new job and brings a turkey sandwich to work every day for lunch.  And to keep up with his bread-consumption and make it easier for him, I've been buying loaves of non-organic white bread every week.  Yuck!  (And even just the thought of turkey every day makes me gag.  I don't know how he can stand it.)   

I hate it that I have to buy non-organic white bread, but he's a picky eater and won't eat the heavy whole-wheat organic ones, especially if they have seeds or nuts in them.  But that seems to be all I can find out here lately.  

And while the organic, artisan-type loaves of sourdough I've been baking are wonderful (I'll share my recipe and process eventually), they're too large and holey for his sandwiches.  So we've been stuck with the non-organic white bread for now.

But no more!  I'm sick of it.  And I hate feeding it to him.  And so it's time to find a good sourdough sandwich bread recipe, one that makes a nice, softer, tighter-crumbed loaf of sourdough that slices thin and holds together well (and freezes nicely, because we always freeze the extras - sourdough freezes and thaws beautifully).  

Hopefully one of these will work.  It's worth a try.   

Baker Bettie (video): Sourdough Sandwich Bread Full Process, Soft Sourdough Loaf (I want to try this one next)... and here's the written recipe on a blog post: "Sourdough Sandwich Bread"

Lovely Bell Bakes (blog): "Super Soft Fresh Milled Sourdough Sandwich Bread"

Farmhouse on Boone (blog): "Sourdough Sandwich Bread"

Wagon Wheel Farmstead (blog): "Soft Sourdough Sandwich Bread, Easy Recipe"

Feast and Farm Cooks (video): Sourdough Sandwich Bread Recipe (easy beginner recipe)

Muscle Momma Sourdough (video): Soft Sourdough Sandwich Bread, step by step beginners guide... (and written recipe)

The Bread Code (a video that's not about sandwich bread but helpful in general, and I really enjoy this guy for some reason, maybe it's his accent or neighborly personality): 18 Sourdough Basics you should know

Alexa PenaVega on her heartbreaking loss

On Godtube, I just watched this touching testimony from Alexa PenaVega (she's in my favorite Christian movies of all time, Do You Believe?, and one of my favorite TV shows, The Middle).  

I had no clue she had gone through such a tragic loss in her life (in 2024, I think) - the death of her newborn baby.  Heartbreaking!

I haven't experienced the same kind of loss she did, but I totally appreciate that she's sharing her story, from a heart full of faith.  May God bless her and use her story to encourage others who've gone through loss, too.

[One thing that caught my attention is that she quoted a verse - one verse - and it happened to be one (of about 5) that I had just written down shortly before I watched her video.  Out of all the verses in the Bible, I encounter the same one twice within a couple hours... coincidence?  

I know that it's a verse I need... and maybe someone else out there needs it too: 

"I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." Jeremiah 31:25

Anyone else weary?  Faint?  

You might also like the songs Worn and Hold My Heart and By Your Side and Healing Begins from Tenth Avenue North...

and Oh, What Love and Fell Apart and Honestly and Praise the Lord from The City Harmonic.

Some of the songs that helped me get through so much!  Sometimes songs and God's Word can do what nothing else can.]

Hardest Spiritual Lesson #3: Praise

[Sorry I've not posted in awhile.  Life got busy.  And click here for Hardest Spiritual Lesson #1 Let Go and #2 Prunings.]

Learning to Praise and Trust God Anyway

I think one of the hardest lessons to learn - and one of the greatest indicators of humility - is learning to praise God, to trust Him, and to cling to Him in the painful hard times. 

It's easy to be thankful and to trust Him and to “sing His praises” when things are going our way and when we have more than enough (which is why I wonder about the level of spiritual maturity and commitment of those who are richly blessed on earth with success and money and power and who have not been broken by the trials and hard times).  But it is so hard to do this when we are in the “desert times” of our lives and when we feel like life is letting us down, like God is letting us down, and like we have been abandoned by Him.

Learning to praise Him and trust Him (and glorify Him) in the painful hard times is part of the journey of faith... and it can only be learned through painful hard times.

It can only be learned ...

James and Wisdom

 James 1:5: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

James 1:6-8: "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

I don't know why, but something just hit me the other day about these verses that I probably once knew but must have forgotten: They go together!