French Fries and Chocolate Milk

I was thinking back to some of my favorite childhood foods and remembered that one of my favorite lunch meals was French fries with chocolate milk. I loved hot crispy shoe string fries with a little saltiness paired with a cool carton of chocolate milk. I’m sure now, looking back, there was little if any real nutritional quality in this lunch, but as a child I didn’t think too much about nutrition...it was all about taste!

It’s been years since I’ve eaten white potatoes (they're just a little too starchy for me) or chocolate milk. Nowadays it's still all about taste, but nutrition is equally important, so when I want to reminisce and yearn for a comfort meal I make baked sweet potato fries and chocolate pudding!


I’ve been on a chocolate pudding kick for the last few weeks…I’m going through phases apparently, because a few weeks before that I was making and eating chocolate truffles weekly! The pudding is dairy-free with the main ingredient and source of creaminess being avocados. Avocados are a rich source of potassium and healthy fat, plus they contain 17 vitamins and minerals…they are great on salads, but this is quite possibly my most favorite way to have them!

Creamy Chocolate Pudding

4 Medjool Dates (pitted, soaked in water, drained)
¼ Cup Raw Honey
¼ - ½ Cup water (as needed depending on desired thickness)
3 Avocados
¾ Cup Cocoa (I prefer the taste of Rapunzel brand)
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to eat. This generally serves 4 at my house. We like things on the less-sweet side, so if you are not a fan of dark or bitter chocolates you may want to add more dates or honey as needed to best suit your taste.

It’s a Good Thing These Two are so Cute…

We were testing Cole and Chloe to see how they would do overnight in the laundry room without a crate and just their puppy gate up to keep them hemmed in. Not so successful…they howled and scratched at the gate all night. Needless to say, the entire house was kept awake.

The next night we tried a pop-up crate with the hopes that we could save space during the day by taking it down when it is not needed. About 2 a.m. I was awakened by the frantic scratching of little paws at the side of my bed. Even in the dark of night, I knew immediately it was Chloe and wondered how she managed to get out of the crate (although my dad has nicknamed her Houdini from past escape artist feats she has pulled). In my sleepy state of the wee-morning hour awakening I picked her up and walked through the dark house to turn on the light in the laundry room and find Cole halfway in and halfway out of a hole they had managed to rip in the front of their pop up crate!





The look in his eyes and the sight of this was just about too much! Even though it was a rude awakening, they are just so funny and cute that no one could be too mad. The next morning we promptly ordered them a new more permanent wood and metal crate. Lord, let it get here soon! They might not be so cute if we keep having sleepless nights!

A Theme Song?

I was out for a run this weekend and was reminded of a song from years ago by Switchfoot...Learning to Breathe! As I listened to the words of the song, I realized how perfectly they fit as a sort of "theme song" for this blog that I unknowingly had given the same name and how perfectly they matched my feelings of gratitude and joy at this present time.

Check out this video I found for it on You Tube:

Not Mine, but Thine

When you walk, God’s commands will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. – Proverbs 6:22

Over the past year, I have truly come to know Jesus as the Author and Perfector of my faith. I have had moments, days, and weeks when I’ve wondered if I heard Him correctly or if He had spoken at all, if I was really listening to Him or if I was just pretending to seek Him yet trying only to hear Him speak what I wanted Him to speak in regards to my wants and perceived needs. Then there were moments, days and weeks where I felt His presence so near and so clearly that it was undeniable, those times where I knew with every fiber of my being that I was walking in His will and fulfilling His purposes for that moment. As He has grown my faith through both types of circumstances, I am thankful to know that I know that I know that He is always walking with me, that when I sleep physically and yes, spiritually by slipping into patterns of busyness and honestly, just plain selfishness, that take my mind and my heart from wholeheartedly seeking Him, He is there, watching over me. I am also thankful that morning by morning He awakens me to His mercies anew and that by His glorious grace He awakens me spiritually to hear His commands that guide me into His purpose and work that He has prepared for me to do.

Praise you Jesus!

On Monday, May 9th, the Home Group Bible study that I attend was canceled due to our leader having a temperature of 104 degrees. I believe at this time the heat was turned up so that I would turn my eyes and ears to hear what God was ready to reveal. I spent some time studying and reflecting on the past few years.

I suffered from iron deficiency anemia, poor digestion, broken out skin, thinness/frailty, paleness, loss of energy and just a general loss of zeal due to fatigue. In the process, I tried gluten-free eating with some success, veganism with yet other benefits, supplements galore and finally an elimination diet followed by Garden of Life nutritional supplements. All of these methods produced some benefit for a time, but nothing brought full healing and restoration, the kind I longed for and felt deeply that God wanted me to experience. I wondered why He didn’t just heal me as I knew He could. During this time I prayed that God would either take me home to Heaven or restore me and help me to know the purpose, the thing that I could truly say that I was created to do.

I realized that He wanted more than to just heal me in the blink of an eye. He wanted to grow my faith and develop a closer relationship with me and for me to know the work He had prepared for me to do and had been preparing me to do. I had my own plans for life, my own agenda, my own timeline…But God, in His mercy and love, caused my work and striving to stop so that I would know He is God (Job 37:7) and no matter what I can conjure up in my mind, He has already prepared the work He has for me…I must simply seek to walk with Him.

Simply Walking

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10

As a Christian, believing in and saved by the blood of Christ, claiming Him as my Lord, I am new. The old has fallen away and I am a new being. As a new creation, there are specific works God has planned for my life, a specific purpose to fulfill. He intends to use me for good work, good work that I am to “walk in”…if I am to “walk in them”; shouldn’t these works come naturally as a part of my day? They should be an overflow of the joy and faith and relationship I have with God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit which now lives in me.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross. –Ephesians 2:13-16

In Christ I am one, I am whole. I receive wholeness in Jesus. Wholeness is a promise I have in Christ.

In Christ, we also are being built together into a dwelling place (a house?) for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)

By wisdom a house (dwelling place?) is built, and by understanding it is established, by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. – Proverbs 24:3-4

In seeking Christ, He graciously gives me wisdom – in effect, he is building a dwelling place.

God’s presence (the Holy Spirit) in me is what fills the rooms of this dwelling place with precious and pleasant riches. The overflow of the filling of these rooms, this dwelling place, with His Spirit is a life of joy, peace, love, and abundance.

I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. – John 10:10

Abundant: sufficient, filled, overflowing, lavish, extravagant, generous, unselfish

I never thought about abundant as being unselfish until I saw it in a thesaurus.

In essence, when Jesus speaks in John 10:10, is He intending: I am come that they may have life and have it more unselfishly?

Jesus came to serve, even unto death. At his last meal he set an example for us as he served the disciples by washing their feet.

When he had finished washing their feet, he returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” He asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. – John 13:12-17

If I will simply walk with Christ, reading His Word, communicating with Him in prayer, the work the Father has prepared in advance for me to do will flow naturally from my life. Because He lives in me, I can be unselfish (Aren't acts of service the practice of unselfishness?) and I can serve Christ through obedience and faith and by serving others. The result will be a filled to overflowing, joyful, loving, and truly abundant life.

Lord, Your Word is life to me. Please seal it within my mind and my heart that I may live by it!