Live the Crazy Life

Memorizing scripture, patience, Steadfast love, Uncategorized

The Necessary Unnecessary path

June 4, 2018 No Comments

God never ceases to amaze me. This month’s memory verse is one of those that you have to ponder on. If you allow the depth of truth hidden in this verse to be revealed, it will surely amaze you! Do you ever feel like sometimes God is saying two opposing things at the same time? This is one of those. Are you ready to be amazed?

2 Thessalonians 3:5 reads, “May the Lord direct your heart to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” A heart-warming good-to-pray verse. Who doesn’t want their heart directed to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ? This is one of those verses you could write in a birthday or graduation card. One that makes everyone feel good. And this is indeed a good thing to pray for yourself and others. But there is a great understanding that might change how you pray this verse.

To start, the words “direct your heart”. That “direct” word is kateuthunó, and it means “go straight down by the most direct, efficient route; to go in a direct course – avoiding all unnecessary delays, without any undue loss of time or achievement”. Ok, that makes perfect sense. I have to point out that I just love the “avoiding all unnecessary delays” part. But here comes the weird part of this verse. The word steadfastness isn’t the steadfast love concept I have been writing about this year. It has a different meaning. The word steadfastness is hupomoné and it means “remaining under, endurance; steadfastness, especially as God enables the believer to “remain (endure) under” the challenges He allots in life”. And there you have it. This verse is asking for our hearts to be directed to God’s love in the straightest path possible without unnecessary delays, and then ends the verse that on our way to God’s love we would go through the endurance to remain in hard places that God allows through Christ’s steadfastness. Those seem like opposites to me. A direct path with no delays to a place of remaining under trials? What?

I am reading this devotional book called Amazed and Confused by Heather Zempel. She does a great job explaining this concept. “Sometimes the best thing to propel us towards Jesus is the desperate determination: that potent combination of certain dispairs in your circumstances and humble confidence in Christ that draws His heart to you.” (page 41) Or I would say draws your heart towards His.

Think about it. God wants every man, woman, and child’s heart to turn toward Him – to seek Him, to want Him and Him only. Sometimes the only way to do that is to allow “trials” in our lives that bring us to a place where the only way to get through them is with the steadfastness of Christ. Maybe just maybe those hard, sometimes impossible to overcome on our own bumps in the road, are the straightest path for us to find Christ to help leads to the father’s heart.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? That God loves us so much that He would direct our hearts to places that are necessary to find Jesus even if we think they were completely unnecessary. It’s a love that leads only to what we need and stirs us – if we let it – away from things that are unnecessary in the process. The key is an open heart and a willing obedience to go where He leads and trust Him to give us the endurance to make it through the rough places to find Him.

The next time you are going through one of those hard places, ask God to open your eyes to the steadfastness of Jesus so you can know His love deeper in the end. Ask Him to lead you, and pray He will show you what you once saw as completely unnecessary you would see as necessary to know His love.

Click Here for June’s Memory Verse.

Bible

Dressed for success

May 21, 2018 No Comments

The perfect shirt that makes you feel pretty. Those jeans that make you feel skinny. That whole outfit that makes you think you can take on the world and win every time. It is interesting how clothing makes you feel. Sweats make you feel safe and comfy, while the right blouse and pants can make you feel powerful and unstoppable. But regardless of what you wear on the outside, you are the same you on the inside. Strange isn’t it? I got a few new super cute tops for Mother’s Day. I put one on and it made me feel amazing, beautiful, smart and noticed. I did get a lot of compliments that day in the office. However, that same day my daily devotion was on Gal. 3:27 which says, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Some translations say clothed yourself with Christ. What a thought – I am clothed with Christ. This verse is talking about once you are saved you remove the old you (your sinful nature) and put on Christ. You become more like Christ. Ok, that is pretty easy to understand. The words clothed with Christ (which is what my devotional said) stuck with me all day.

I am clothed with Christ. What that verse literally says is that you are sinking into Christ. Think back to those comfy sweats or yoga pants you just feel so at peace in – so comfortable in. You know those pants you can’t wait to put on when you get home from work. We all have a pair of pants like that. For you maybe it’s jeans or yoga pants. For me it’s a pair of – I guess you could call them yoga pants – I don’t honestly know what to call them. But they are black with pinkish flowers and are made of the softest cotton in the world. I want to live the rest of my life in these pants. Now that you are thinking how good your (whatever type of) pants feel, think of this: do you ever feel that way about Christ? Do you ever long to just sink into Jesus? If not, maybe you should change up your time with Jesus. However you do devotional life with God, it should feel like those pants you can’t wait to put on. It should be the time of day you long for, can’t wait for, and want to last longer.

But that isn’t all the Bible says about clothing. In fact, there are a lot of scriptures about clothing. The more I thought about putting on Christ, the more I searched what else I am to put on or take off.

Luke 12:35 says to be dressed for action. The idea here is the biblical concept of girding your loins. Which just sounds funny. Can you imagine if you call your kids down for breakfast in the morning and they respond with, “I’ll be right there. I’m just girding my loins”? Oh my, that would make me laugh. But the idea of being dressed ready to serve at His command is an admirable way to dress for life.

Colossians chapter 3 gives you a list of things to take off: anger, malice, slander, obscene talk. It also then gives a list of things to put on or clothe yourself with: compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, and above all love which binds everything together.

Isaiah 61:3 says to put on the garment of praise. Yes, the Bible really does have a lot to say about what we should clothe ourselves in.

So the next time you get dressed in your “best foot forward” outfit, ask yourself this question: Are you also wearing compassion, kindness, humility and love that ties the whole outfit together? And when you slip into your comfy pants, let those pants be a reminder to find time to sink into Christ. What you put on can change the way you feel about yourself, but when you spend time with Jesus it will change you!

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Bible, Memorizing scripture, wisdom

Living in light of wisdom

May 4, 2018 No Comments

It’s May!! Wow, this year is flying by, and what a year it has been. It has had some amazing moments and quite possibly some of my very lowest moments, too! This year, which started with my theme word for the year of steadfast love, slowly morphed into a year where two words – steadfast love and wisdom – (thus far) are making the framework for how I view everything. I still am learning to see everything in life through the steadfast love of God; which by the way is a great viewpoint to live from. Then, slowly, wisdom crept into my line of sight. There has been so much that I don’t know how to respond to, or I simply respond in my own ways -which usually lack wisdom and end up making a mess of the situation. So I found myself creating the monthly memory verse this month and hoping I could return to steadfast love but found wisdom swirling in my heart and mind. So here it is.

James 3:17 “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”

I want to live with God’s wisdom in all situations – never my own. I fail at this a lot, but I promise it is a goal. So I am learning to distinguish my wisdom from God’s. That, my friend, involves prayer. Before I go any further in what I believe this verse to mean, I must disclose that prayer is the key to the whole thing. You can’t have wisdom from God if you are not talking to God about whatever the situation may be. Ok, now that that is established, let’s look at the verse a little deeper.

Being true to me I looked at what all the different words that describe wisdom mean. Some mean exactly what they say, and others had deeper meanings. Let me show you. Wisdom means intellect. Uh, could have guessed that. But pure means in a condition prepared for worship. So when I am seeking wisdom from God it will come in the form of intellect that puts my heart in a place of worship. That is not all that pure means. It also means not mixed with guilt. Meaning whatever I feel the Lord saying to do will not make me feel guilty for doing it in the end.

Peaceable means God’s gift of wholeness – knowing the Lord’s will and obeying it. God will make clear the best way to respond to the situation, and your job is to obey it. Then it is gentle. I just loved what I found this to mean. You would expect it to mean easy or soft in some way; but not so much here. It means truly fair by relaxing overly strict standards in order to keep the spirit of the law. God won’t hold us to some impossible standard. He will never change what is right and what is wrong, but how He leads through wisdom is usually a curvy path rather than a straight line.

Then comes open to reason, not meaning that you are open to being swayed by what you feel the Lord has said in a given situation, but rather that it is easy to obey. When you spend time seeking God in prayer, you place yourself in a position to obey. He moves your heart to that place of obedience. Mercy means what you would expect mercy to mean. But good fruit means something amazing here in this verse. It means everything done in true partnership with Christ resulting from two life streams – the Lord moving through our lives to yield what is eternal. Lastly, impartial means being certain, and sincere means free from hidden agendas.

Ok, that was a lot. Let me put all of this together for you. Life bombards us with decisions. Some have no impact on our life beyond that moment. Others have an impact that lasts years, and some for eternity. When those big decisions need to be made, God will give you wisdom. James 1:5 tells us God will give us wisdom when we ask. When He does, it brings peace and makes us stand in awe and worship God. It isn’t a strict and heavy burden to carry. You won’t have doubt. You will approach the whole thing full of mercy. It will yield eternal impact, and you won’t have hidden agendas in your heart.

This year has led me to make HUGE decisions I never imagined having to think about, let alone decide the right thing to do in the situation. They have been heart-wrenching hard choices, but I have been able to make those decisions in peace because I leaned into God and sought wisdom from above.

Click Here for the May memory verse

Bible, Memorizing scripture, Parenting, Prayer, Raising Teens

Bright Shiny Stars

April 8, 2018 No Comments

It’s April which means it’s time for a new memory verse for the month. And, yes, I know once again I am a few days late in getting this post done. I somehow feel as if someone has sped up time in my life, and I just never seem to have enough.

Ok, on to this month’s memory verse. I had stated in January that my word for the year was steadfast. Steadfast love to be exact, and it still is. But recently God has added another word to be a theme for my year. Wisdom. The word is used about 235 times in roughly 222 verses. That’s not counting words associated with wisdom like “wise”. It isn’t the most used word in the Bible, but it is in there a lot.

Allow me to explain how wisdom became a word for me. I have 3 teenagers. Who are awesome kids. But they are kids, and they do, on occasion, do things that are not wise. They have been known to act without using wisdom. So I began to pray that they would gain wisdom. Not just wisdom like in school (I do pray that, too) but Godly wisdom. That they would make wise choices; that when they talk with their peers, their words would be filled with wisdom from the Lord. I began to ask the Lord to help me have wisdom in how I parent these 3 teens. Through these prayers, it was like the word wisdom seemed to become highlighted in my Bible reading. Then one day, I came across an interesting, somewhat odd, and very cool verse about wisdom.

Daniel 12:3 says, “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Bam, it hit me! That is what I want for my kids, for me, for my husband, for all of us. I want my kids to shine in their high school with the light of Jesus. I want them to be filled with so much Godly wisdom that when a friend is in trouble or in need of help, they have the wisdom of the Lord in what to do or say. I want me & my kids to help turn other kids towards righteousness. I want that for myself, don’t you?

If I and my family could become this verse in the lives we live, it would change so many things. It would have such an impact in our spheres of influence.

So for April, and maybe longer, I am praying this over us. That we would have wisdom from God that would shine in a world full of darkness like a beacon of hope for those lost at sea. That God through our words would turn us towards righteousness and also those around us. That the dark scary parts of our world would be filled with shining stars of heavenly wisdom, and twinkly with righteousness, too.

Will you join me this month in memorizing this verse and praying it over yourself? Would you become a bright shining star for Jesus in your world? Will you bring light to the darkness and righteousness to those who need it?

I can’t wait to hear how God uses wisdom in your life to brighten lives around you.

Click here for April’s memory verse.

Easter

Preparation & Courage

March 31, 2018 No Comments

It’s almost Easter, and I am almost ready – or so I thought. I had my shopping list – my amazing husband is shopping for groceries as I type this in fact. I have everything I need to put the kids’ Easter gift bags together. I am actually not behind schedule for once. So I take advantage of the time, and I sit down to do my devotions. I am doing a hodgepodge of sorts in my daily reading. Following a Lent reading from Margaret Feinberg and then homework from two different Bible studies. It’s weird, but it works for me.

What I want to focus on in this blog is a short reading from the Lent reading. It’s Mark 15:42-47; just 5 short verses. It’s all it took today for God to speak and move. There are two things that stood out for me in this reading. They relate to Easter and to every day. Verse 42 reads, “And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath.” Day of Preparation. It was like the words jumped off the page. The day before the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of preparation. A day spent doing all the things that would become a distraction if left undone on the Sabbath. What a thought. Preparing for time for Jesus. I am just starting a study on the Sabbath, but I know it is a day dedicated to the Lord to worship and honor him with our time, however that looks. But the idea of preparing for it – I had simply never thought about this before. How different would my Sabbath times be if I took the day before to prepare? What if I could figure out how to prepare so that when I take time to honor God I am not distracted? I am not overwhelmed by the too-long list of things to get done. I will have to try this. I am sure the study on the Sabbath will help give feet to this new spiritual discipline unfolding in my heart. Perhaps I will write how it goes, what I learned, and what God wants to share.

The next part that struck me is in verse 43. I guess it really only took two verses for God to speak to me. Isn’t it wonderful when you don’t have to read chapters and chapters before God speaks? Although those times have their own sense of enjoyment, don’t they? Back to verse 43; it reads, “Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was himself looking for the kingdom of God took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” Did you catch it? He took courage. First I think of this verse in light of Easter. It must have taken tremendous courage for Jesus to face the cross. After all, He did pray three times that God would take this cup from Him, yet He did the will of the Father. If we are to reflect the life of Jesus in our lives, then we should be people full of courage. And then in light of Joseph. He was well respected by the leaders of that time. He was on the council, and I believe he was known by Pilate. I love the wording “took courage”. To me, it’s like looking at that thing we are supposed to do that scares us and then realizing God has a spirit of courage there waiting for us to just take it. Jesus took it to His death. Joseph took it facing government officials and peers. We can take it too! Why don’t we more often?

So as Easter fast approaches I have a new perspective. Preparing ahead of time to spend the day honoring my risen King with my full attention and my best efforts because I have come to that day prepared in the time and space in the day or day(s) beforehand. And I come to that day with courage. Courage to ask my neighbour to church instead of just talking about it.

But this isn’t just for Easter. Each week I have the choice to be prepared to have time to reflect on the goodness of God – to worship Him undistracted. And remember that I can take courage and face the things God is calling me to with confidence in Him. For in Him and Him alone I can be courageous.

Bible, love, Memorizing scripture, Steadfast love

A Precious Love

March 6, 2018 No Comments

The steadfast love of God, how great it is. To live in the knowledge of a Savior who loves us unconditionally, with an unmoving, never-ending love is overwhelming and amazing.

You have heard of people having a word to define their season, or maybe they have a word for the year. I am not sure which mine is or both, but the word to define my life is STEADFAST LOVE. I guess it really is two words, but who’s counting. Steadfast love is a word I hear in my heart and mind daily. It seems to jump off the pages of the Bible when I see it. It recalibrates me when I get lost in the pain of life or the routine of the mundane.

So for the memory verse for the month of March, here is another one on steadfast love. Maybe it will be a year of steadfast love. Time will tell, but for now, it remains my anchor of hope in a stormy sea.

Psalm 36:7-8 says “How precious is your steadfast love O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.” Just take that first line, how precious is your steadfast love O God! The Bible ends that sentence with an exclamation mark, but it could just as easily end with a question mark. I ask God to show me how precious His steadfast love is. He reminds me of Easter. Of a steadfast love that gave His life for mine. Of how steadfast love clung to the cross, to the hope, to the redemption of my soul.

God’s love is not like man’s love. It loves when it is inconvenient – when the one being loved does not deserve it. It is always there through sleepless nights and sorrow-filled days. God’s love surrounds us if we take the time to see it.

God’s steadfast love is an abundance feast in His house. What a thought. God’s love creates a place for us where we are the honored guest. It quenches our dry throats with water from the river of His delight. It refreshes and restores our broken hearts. It reminds us that we are not alone. There are others God graciously gathers with us to join the feast, to help us celebrate who He is in our midst.

What a love. It knows no bounds, no limits, no hesitations. It gives freely to all who will partake of it. So I ask you, have you thought how precious God’s love is lately? Have you silenced your mind and your heart long enough to really appreciate the steadfast love God offers? If you haven’t you should. Take a moment and think about what God’s love is to you. Maybe you have never thought about the fact that God, the creator of the universe, is passionately in love with you. He is. He loves you with a steadfast love that will never fade. He loves you where you are right now in the midst of whatever your life is. He loves you because He created you. No one knows you better, and still He will always choose to love you. That, my friends, is a love worth daydreaming about. It is worthy of gratitude and thankfulness.

Take time to tell God how precious His love is to you and how thankful you are for it. It will change your day. It will make a bad attitude better. It will remind you there is good out there and in you. It will pull you out of a funk and hold your hand if you need to cry. It is precious and profound, and it is yours.

How precious is your steadfast love O God!(?)

Click here for the March 2018 memory verse

Bible, Easter, family activities, family fun, Holiday, Uncategorized

Gearing up for Easter

February 26, 2018 1 Comment

Is there more to Easter than a church service, a bunny, egg hunts, and a family dinner? I know that theologically speaking, of course, there is. But when it came right down to it our celebration of Easter was not much more than that. A one-day celebration, if you could call it that, with a bunch of mixed traditions. As my kids grew older I wanted more from the Easter season. I wanted a rich understanding and deep connection with what Easter really means to us as Christ followers. I wanted it to be fun for my kids but not void of the gratitude and grace that Easter has.

As Pastors, church services are a given. I don’t think there was ever an Easter that my children were not in multiple church services, but something still was lacking. We read the Easter story. Watched cute movies about Easter. I even made a cake for the Easter dinner in the shape of a cross. Yet still, there was something in me that felt like we were missing the mark; maybe not all together, but we were not as close to the target as I hoped.

Then last year in a bible study I was involved in, the topic of prophecy came up – specifically the prophecies of Jesus. As I studied and read them, I began to realize I was not as familiar with them as I thought I would be. Sure I know the basics, but there were so many prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in His life, many I didn’t remember. And then it hit me. What if we took the month leading up to Easter (it helped that that year Easter was at the end of a month rather than the beginning or the middle) to read the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus? I knew my kids knew the story of Easter, but I bet they didn’t know how many prophecies that Easter alone fulfilled – not to mention Jesus’ life.

I decided that each day for the 30 days prior to Easter we would read an Old Testament prophecy about the life of Jesus. I bought foam shaped crosses and wrote the scriptures on them with a marker.

I had my husband, who is great at building just about anything I ask, to build me a cross with a stand. I then hammered 30 nails all around to hang the crosses on after we read the verses. Lastly, I looked up the New Testament fulfilment of the prophecies and wrote those scripture references on more crosses. I put the 30 New Testament Bible verse in plastic eggs.

On Easter Sunday we read the last Old Testament scriptures and hung up the last little foam cross on the big wooden cross.

My husband and I hid all the stuffed plastic eggs outside. We told the kids to go find them. They were expecting them to be filled with candy like they have been in the past, but as they opened them they were shocked to find more crosses with Bible verses on them. We told them if they could match each Old Testament prophecy to the New Testament fulfilment they would each get 30 pieces of candy.

They pulled out their Bibles and worked together to match each one. We talked about how Jesus fulfilling those prophies brings validity to Jesus being who He said He was. We talked as a family about the importance of His death on the cross, and how He was raised from death to life.

I know there is still more that God wants from me as I head into Easter season this year! And I am working to accomplish those things. But I know that helping my kids understand the connection of the whole Bible to Jesus is a huge part of that. And helping them realize that Easter is more than a holiday with candy, church, and family dinner is a starting point. I want my kids to grasp that Easter is what our faith is about – a Savior who paid the highest price imaginable to be able to spend eternity with us in Heaven. As I keep praying for them and me to understand this revelation deeper, we will continue to have family fun with our cross matching game.

Click here for Scriptures references I used.

Bible, Friendship, Uncategorized, Valentine's Day

All kinds of Love

February 6, 2018 1 Comment

Ah, February, the month of love. And since my word for the year is Steadfast love this is shaping up to be a great month! Of course, we tend to focus February’s love on those we love, but what if we included those we simply like in our focus this month? What if we shifted our focus to those God loves this month?

I woke up in the middle of the night with two thoughts on love running through my mind. The first stemmed from John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I called you friend for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

Jesus, the one we are supposed to serve, changes that game and says while you are serving me I will call you friend. The word friend there has lots of meanings ranging from an acquaintance to a trusted confidant, held dear in a close bond of personal affection. This is where my thoughts began to run wild. Jesus – the one who loved me before I knew Him – that Jesus calls me a friend. I began to think of my friends. How do I treat them? Am I only friendly with them when it serves me? Do I seek out time with them when I am lonely and have nothing better to do? Do I love and honor them the way a true friend deserves to be loved?

As I lay there in the middle of the night with all these thoughts of friends – questioning if I am even a good one – my mind circled back to February, the month of love. What if I not only focused my love toward my friends? What if I told them how important they are to me? To God? What if I looked for small ways to tell my friends they are loved and valued this month? Some of my friends are going through some really hard stuff. I bet yours are too. What if God used me to show them his love? I began thinking of ways to do just that, expanding this month of love to include my circle of friends.

I wrote down a few things thinking that would help me 1) remember them in the morning, and 2) give my mind the peace it needed to fall back to sleep. It didn’t work. My mind transitioned from God loving me as a friend and me living that out this month to God loving those I don’t. God loves the unlovely. That is a heavy thought at 3:00 am. John 13:35 came to mind. “By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”

My restless mind, now almost fully awake, began to wonder, “Do I show the world around me the love of Christ? Would a stranger in the store know I was a Christ follower because of the way I chose to interact with them? Does giving the homeless man on the side of the road a granola bar as I drive by count as love? Could I do more? Is God wanting me to do more?”

I wrote down a few more thoughts on my paper by my bed hoping once more that by writing it down and planning to dedicate more attention to this in the morning that I would be able to fall asleep. It did sort of help this time. The final thought/prayer was what if I challenge myself and others through this blog to live these two verses out this month?

So here it is – February the month of love. I challenge you this month to look beyond those you “love” to those you like. Find a way to make them feel important, valued, and cared for. It could as simple as taking a friend for coffee or sending a quick text to let them know you are thinking of them. Then don’t stop there. Take that spirit of love to those who truly need to know someone cares about them. Do something for someone you find unlovable this month. Become someone who is known for the love they give to others. Share the love of God by loving on those around you, those you really do love with your whole heart. Then share the love of Jesus with those you like: friends, co-workers and neighbours. And then take a giant leap and share the love of the one who calls you friend with those who have no one to love them.

I have decided to make these two verses the memory verse for this month. You can pick one or the other.

Click here for John 13:35

Click here for John 15:15

Leave me a comment to let me know how your month of love is going.

Bible, family activities, family fun, Holiday, Parenting, Raising Teens, Valentine's Day

Remind them how much Jesus loves them this Valentine’s Day

January 29, 2018 No Comments

I have three teenagers and more than anything I want them to have a great relationship with Jesus; filled with the knowledge of His great love for them. With that in mind, I am always looking for ways to remind them of just how much Jesus really does love them. And with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I decided to use this holiday of love to focus on God’s love for us.

In the past leading up to Valentine’s Day, I have given them hearts where I have written why I love them. But this year I wanted them to know God’s love for them. I start on February 1st and every day for the next 14 days I hang one random heart in their room with a personalized Bible verse about God’s love. For example, I might write “For God so loved Aaron that He gave His only Son so that Aaron should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.

A few days ahead of time, I started cutting out my hearts. I used scrapbooking paper that I already had, but you can buy heart themed paper, or red or pink whatever you want. I cut out various size hearts using different sized cookie cutters and tracing them on the paper – one for each kid for 14 days. For me, this was a total of 42 hearts. I also looked up all my verses ahead of time. I have a list of several scriptures you can use Valentine’s Day Activity –God’s love Bible verses. Just remember to personalize them! Then every morning for the first 14 days in February I would hang a heart with a verse on it somewhere in their room. If my children hadn’t mentioned anything about the hearts to me by dinner I would ask them if they found the one for that day.

Last year I even added my husband in this. I wrote why I loved him on 14 different hearts and hung them around our room. Most of which are still hanging in the same place a year later.

It’s a small thing but I pray the impact of these hearts will be huge. That they will remind my kids, on days when they feel like no one loves them, that even then God loves them like crazy.

If you have ways you have tried to help your kids recognize God’s love for them I’d love to hear about it. Leave your ideas in the comment section below!

Happy Valentine’s Day, and remember God loves you more than you can even comprehend.

Recipes

Gluten Free Easy Mini Quiche

January 22, 2018 No Comments

These mini quiches are so yummy and so easy. They are my go-to for any brunch or breakfast I host or I have to take a dish too. Once you try them they will be your go-to recipe too!

You can add basically anything to the base to make just about any flavor you can think of. My favorite is bacon cheddar, but I have made veggie herb, bacon cheddar salsa, parmesan cheddar, and mushroom.

The best part is these little guys are gluten-free, making them something almost anyone can eat (as long as they aren’t dairy free). You can make the base the night before and bake them off quickly the morning of your breakfast or brunch, you can make them a day ahead and reheat in the oven or microwave, and they freeze well too! These really are the most versatile quiche I have ever made! You can even make multiple types at once. I have two mini muffin pans so I will do one bacon and cheddar, and the other 1/2 parmesan veggie, and 1/2 cheddar herb. Again you can do just about anything with these!

Here is the recipe for the bacon cheddar, but keep in mind you can use any meat, just about any cheese, and any veggies you want.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cornstarch or tapioca flour

1 1/4 whole milk (I use 2% but you can use whatever you would like)

1 cup heavy cream (or make them lighter by using 1/2 & 1/2)

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

4 strips bacon cooked and chopped

Shredded cheddar cheese (or any cheese shredded)

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. I know it’s high! In a bowl that has a pour spout (I literally use a plastic water pitcher and double the recipe) pour your cornstarch or tapioca flour. Mix in 1 cup of milk and stir until all the cornstarch or tapioca is dissolved. Then add all the ingredients except the bacon, cheese, and any veggies or other add-ins like salsa, or herbs.

Take a mini muffin pan, and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle the cheese of your choice in the muffin spot and push down slightly. If you are using veggies, salsa, herbs, add them now. Pour the egg and milk base over the cheese until 3/4 of the muffin spot is full. Sprinkle with bacon.

Bake 15-17 mins. (the wetter your add-ins the longer you need to cook them. I wouldn’t cook them longer than 18-20 mins)

This recipe will make between 48-55 depending on how full your muffin tin is.

Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 mins.

Remove from pan and plate. Serve warm or room temperature.