Laughter, Happiness, and a Long Life

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Sunflowers are rightly named, don't you think?

Today I'm thinking of a woman I know who, if I remember it right, is turning 101, and every time I've been around her, she has been sunshine personified.  

I've thought of her more often lately than she may imagine.  I think of her when I'm feeling discouraged sometimes, and I try to do what I think she might do to become undiscouraged, which usually leads me to take myself a bit less seriously and move on with life looking at things from a larger perspective.

I'm told she'll often wake herself up in the middle of the night, because she's laughing out loud in her sleep without realizing it.  She laughs quite a lot during the day, too.

She makes me think there must be something more to a happy life than circumstances, more to greeting the day with a smile than whether or not everything is just how you'd like it to be.

Because you simply can't live 101 years without facing griefs, trials, worries, and cares.

Yet she's happy anyway, and every time I think of her, I get a little happier too.

Heart and Home: Preparing for Sabbath

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For part of my evening worships, I've been reading on a collection of topics from medical missionary work to Christian education to hospitality to the importance of daily Bible study.  The latest topic, 'The Observance of Sabbath", has my mind whirring with the ways Sabbath can be a much deeper experience for me.

I tend to work from to-do lists, it's easy for me to skip over things that don't lend themselves to getting checked off.  

For example, how does one really know when the heart is at peace, ready to rest in Jesus on the Sabbath?  Well, it's probably not when I'm frantically glancing back and forth from the clock to my list.  Yet at the same time, it's hard for me to take a deep breath if I'm still surrounded by all the visual evidences of things I didn't get done.

Thus I was especially encouraged to find in my recent reading a focus on both sides of the coin:  knowing what physical things really need to be done to create an atmosphere of peace (a list! yay!), as well as deeper heart things that can't always be quantified on a sheet of scratch paper to be crossed off after a quick sweep of a broom.

And the best part?  What I read felt doable.  Not overwhelming.  Not sloppy.  But practical, smooth, balanced, in my reach.

Which was all good news, because I found I really have some reorienting to do as I get ready for Sabbath this week.

Look Toward Sabbath all Week

It's hard to keep Sabbath free of the stress and craziness of the week if we aren't walking with God each day.  Yet more than that, we can take the opportunity each day to ask God to help us be ready for the Sabbath blessings He has to bestow.  

In particular, talking with our families about spiritual things during the week, singing together, and keeping a cheerful outlook throughout the week will set a sweet tone not only for the weekday grind, but also for the Sabbath. 

On a practical, list-making note, looking ahead to Sabbath during the week might mean we take a realistic look at how and when we do laundry, buy groceries, clean the house, and cook meals, so that none of these things will overwhelm a single day and so that there won't be last-minute pressure to rush through these things right before Sabbath.

Preparation Day for the Home

These goals feel easier to set for me, even though life often catches up with me, and I feel in a mad rush by the last hour before sunset on Fridays.  {Is that because I try to do too much, or just that I try to do too much of it in that last hour?  hmm...}

• Clothes:  Church definitely doesn't need to be a fashion show, but have nice clothes ready for wearing to church the day before (or sooner, really).  That way, there's no fuss, no last-minute ironing, no digging through the laundry pile.  
• Food:  We don't have to kill ourselves off to make a huge feast for Sabbath, but it is nice to have most of the prep work done ahead.  I'm learning more and more to just throw something simple in the crock pot, and I love having lunch essentially ready  to dish onto my plate when I walk in the door from church.  That does two things:  first, it feeds us at a reasonable lunch time, and second, it gets us out the door into nature sooner.
• De-clutter:  Get all the school and work and secular stuff out of the way for Sabbath.  Organize the spaces.  If those distractions are out of sight, it's harder to spend the Sabbath thinking about them.

Preparation Day for the Heart

Ah, the heart.  Less quantifiable, less list-able.  And that equals less attention from someone like me.  Yet I deeply need my heart to be prepared for each Sabbath, unless I want to keep rushing into the day of God's delight in a frenzy without a full peace in my heart.

• Do I have any unresolved conflicts?  What can I do to resolve them?
• Am I keeping bitterness in a dark corner of my heart?
• Have I humbly confessed my faults and asked forgiveness for them?  Have I prayed with someone I wronged, asking God to bless them?
• Have I taken an inventory of my week, and honestly taken stock of whether I'm closer to Jesus by the end of the week, or further away from Him?

Just reviewing my highlighted book and typing out these words gives me pause.  I so much need this kind of heart work on a regular basis, and while it feels daunting, I greatly desire it.

{While I shared all these thoughts in my own words, because I need the reminders for my own heart, I'd be remiss not to direct you to my source, where you can find far more profound expression of all these thoughts and more:  White, Ellen G.  "The Observance of the Sabbath" in Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, pages 349-368.  For this post, I focused on the section of this chapter titled "Preparation for the Sabbath".}

Favorite Eggplant Recipes

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In honor of the new eggplant blossoms coming out in the garden, I thought it would be fun to anticipate the harvest by sharing some of our favorite eggplant recipes from around the web.  I really didn't grow up eating much eggplant, and about the only thing I knew you could make with eggplant was Eggplant Parmesan.  

Well, not particularly favoring that dish, I didn't become friends with eggplants until a few years ago in a delightful restaurant where they made Middle Eastern food.  More on that in a minute, except to say that we did what we always do:  we went home and tried to figure out how to make that amazing food ourselves.

Once we learned that one dish, we decided growing eggplants would be the best way to keep ourselves in a healthy supply.  Then we realized we might need to learn more ways to cook eggplant, since we learned upon our arrival in South Texas that eggplant bushes live for at least a couple of years in this climate, and produce profusely.

Time to experiment again!  Here are a few of our new favorites.  Click each heading to go directly to the recipes.  I hope you enjoy them!

Eggplant Dip (Baba Ghanouj)

Baba Ghanouj is similar to hummus, except made with roasted eggplant instead of garbanzo beans (or another kind of bean).  This is our first-love eggplant recipe, the one we learned to make after eating it in a restaurant.  It sure was convenient for Simply Recipes to post a recipe for it right about that time!  Serve it with things like pita bread, hummus, sliced veges, and a tabouli salad, and you'll have a feast right before your eyes.

Marrakesh Vegetable Curry

I have my amazing husband to thank for finding and making this recipe the other day, when our original eggplant plan wasn't available due to the lack of home-made pita bread in the house (my fault).  He wasn't sure we'd ever had this blend of flavors before, and I think he was right, but oh, how delicious it was!

I love this one all the more because it combines so many rich colors of vegetables--you even get the orange of a sweet potato with the dark leafy greens.  So when there's something delicious AND healthy, I'm pretty excited about it.

Exotic Brinjal (Spicy Eggplant)

Another found-by-husband special, I was taken right from the start with the creamy coconut milk base.  He's gracious enough to scale down the hot peppers for my sake, keeping a good supply of chopped garden peppers beside his plate for good measure.  I wouldn't dare tell you I've heard of every seasoning in this recipe, but it turned out great with the ones we used.

Lentil Eggplant Stew (Vegan, Gluten Free)

And last but not least, a recipe I found in my grandmother's recipe box last summer and made on a drizzly Portland summer afternoon when stew just seemed like the right idea.  Delicious, and comfort food at its best.  We don't have drizzly afternoons in South Texas, but I think it won't be long before I need to imagine one, and make this stew whether the climate cooperates or not!

Why I Love Exercising in the Morning

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I've always been a morning person.  I love to go to bed early (even though I struggle to achieve it now more than ever!), and I love waking up to hear the birds singing their morning songs.  

I love getting out in the early light, and I love the way the air smells in the first part of the day.  I love the way early morning exercise pumps energy and life into my whole day, and I love the way the time in the open air gives me time to think and pray.

The thing about living in south Texas in the summer is that even if I didn't love all those things, I would need to exercise as early in the morning as possible because it's the coolest time of day...which is about 80 degrees, of course.

And so I see all the regulars out on the path in the mornings, they too avoiding the hot part of the day--the lady walking with weights, the man on his bike who stops to do stretches and exercises at different intervals, the two women walking and talking together shading themselves with flattened cardboard boxes, the gentleman wearing the fire department t-shirt who told me all about the community garden next to the fire station when I stopped my run to find out about the hedge of grapes growing there.

Mr. Turtle on the path was a surprise, though.  His kind usually dwell down in the canal, and scamper into the water as soon as so much as a shadow crosses over their sun-drenched shells.  

I came upon him when I was feeling discouraged one morning, praying for God to help me overcome it, and you know what?  Mr. Turtle was a great distraction from my dark thoughts.

While he tucked his head under his shell, I stopped to look at him more closely.  His shell had a dent from an injury, but he was otherwise in tact.  What he was doing so far from the water's edge I couldn't tell, but I waited breathlessly until he peeked out to see where I was. 

Too close.  That's where I was.  The head disappeared again. 

I stepped away a space, and watched again.  I wanted to be sure he could find his way home.  While I didn't want to pick him up myself, I didn't want him to spend the rest of his life wandering the dusty path, either.

Sure enough, next time he poked his head out, he decided I was a safe distance away and turned toward the bank and started down it.  I watched him until he made it home, and then headed home myself, more ready for the day after a cheerful distraction, convinced afresh that exercise and time with my Lord in the morning is the best way to start the day.

Biblical Self Sacrifice

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"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."  Romans 12:1

Paul entreats me today, not because he's Paul and he knows what he's talking about.  No, he's much too humble for that, though indeed if anyone had anything to brag about in the Christian life, it would be him.

Rather, he wants me to pay close attention to his next words because of God's own deep mercy.

The same mercy that provided clothes for Adam and Eve, the same mercy that rescued David from his darkest sins, the same mercy that heard Daniel's prayer and returned the Israelites to their homeland, the same mercy that carried a cruel cross up a hill only to be killed upon it.

The thought of this mercy is what Paul says should make me want to live my life in sacrifice for God's cause--not sacrifice for the sake of it, or the kind of life poured out empty of all joy and meaning, but a life of holy service that puts God's interests above mine.

Every moment, every day.

It's a short verse, this introduction to Romans 12, but it gives me cause to stop long, and linger over words bringing conviction to my heart.

For what would it look like, my life all changed over so much that every goal large or small had its root in doing something to honor my Lord who had such mercy on me?

There's Always Time for Praising God

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I did a little math today.  You know how people say you'll never use math again once you're out of school?  They're wrong.  I use it all the time, in lots of different ways.

The kind of problem I did today was a simple percentage calculation.

I wanted to know, out of the 49 verses in Daniel chapter 2, how many were dedicated to Daniel's prayer of thanksgiving once he had the same vision Nebuchadnezzar had seen, and on top of that the interpretation of it.

The prayer begins in verse 19 through verse 23, which makes five verses.  Therefore, out of the chapter's 49 verses, this prayer takes up slightly more than ten percent (a tithe, if you will) of the chapter.

While I'm certainly not here to offer a formula for how often and how much of our time we ought to budget for praising God, I do find it interesting that such a significant portion of an already lengthy chapter would be dedicated to heart-felt thanks.

Why?

Because if it were me, knowing that my ability to tell the king his dream and its interpretation directly influenced my immediate longevity and that of my colleagues, I would be tempted to say thank you later.  You know, after I had gone to the king to save my life.

But Daniel doesn't.  Death has already knocked at his door, but he's in no hurry.  He gives thorough praise to the God who reveals secrets before he goes out the door to accomplish his mission.

In my own tendency to rush to and through the to-do list without stopping for breath let alone thanks, I could take yet another lesson from Daniel, don't you think?

Isaiah 41: A Promise for the Hard Road Ahead

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Yesterday afternoon, my husband and I were privileged to spend a few short hours in our local children's hospital's PICU unit, where a friend of ours awaited his back-to-round-one chemo treatment.  In a few short days, he had transitioned from the amazingly awesome R word (Remission) to the ugly R word anyone with a life-threatening illness dreads to hear:  Relapse.

I felt blessed to be there, partly because this family opened up to us and became fast friends right away when we arrived in South Texas knowing no one.  I wanted in some small way to return the priceless support they gave us in our own transition.  

And partly because I was amazed at the resilience of a hurting family whose daughters dropped everything to come spend a few days with their brother, whose voices could be heard in laughter as well as in pain while we all spent an afternoon together like usual, except for the venue and the new R word.

They inspire me.

And my heart breaks for the difficult road ahead of them.  I don't have words.

Yet even now, God has words.  They come to my mind with a fresh hope, a fresh invitation to cling to those things that sustain better than physical nourishment, the promises of our God who never changes and never leaves us to face these valleys alone.

Will you join me in praying for this family whose son faces the dark days of his leukemia battle all over again?