Another Child of God

This week has been an awesome week, for the most part!  We had revival services at our church and he really preached hard on our walk with God, our attitudes etc.  On Monday I could tell the devil was fighting and trying hard to convince me to keep my two sons home.  One being in school and the other at 18 months made me dread the late nights and bed times.  I dreaded the melt downs that I knew would come.

As I cleaned my tub that day, I noticed a spot on the wall of the tub.  I took my scrubber and swiped my hand over it not paying much attention.  I felt immediate pain and looked down at my finger only to see the top layer of my skin on my fingertip had come off.  I had a hole in the tub.  I have no idea how that happened.  Immediately I thought about the cost of replacing something like a tub and all the other little things in the house that I knew needed attention.  AKA, spend more money on.  Our faucet in the other bathroom was being replaced and we didn't have time yet to put the faucet back together as we ran into a problem with the tubes being too short.  Who knows when that would be done!  We had just finished painting the bathroom and don't have the shower rod up because we needed to find a new attachment to screw in the wall to keep the paint from peeling when you used the curtain rod.  Oh yeah, did I fail to mention the numerous times we have had to work on our van lately?  Currently we now know that it is the fuel injector that needs replaced and that should solve the problem.  But wait!  what about the other car?  We are having problems with that and all we can do is pray it doesn't need attention soon!  Oh and one last one....  we had to replace our 6 year old refrigerator a couple months ago because it bit the dust.  

So as all those things ran through my mind, the Holy Spirit reminded me that devil was behind all this to keep me from going to the Monday night revival.  I was then more determined to go.  I was not going to let him beat me.

I'm so glad we went.  At the end of the service my oldest son, asked Christ into his heart.  I can't describe how I felt.  This last week he had been asking about salvation but we did not think he was ready.  We told him to pray and ask God to give him wisdom and understanding and he did.  We had some ups and downs with our son the week before with disobeying, lying etc.  I now look back and see that God used those moments to speak to him about sin and what it is and what it meant for Jesus to die for our personal sins.  We my husband returned to the pew, I looked up at him to see if it was true.  Did he really understand?  He shook his head yes.  He said he was crying when he asked his daddy about getting saved.  There was a humbleness in his heart and an understanding that Jesus died for HIS sins.

When we got home that night, my son was singing with gladness and jumping around.  I asked him to get dressed.  5 minutes later he bounced in our room still not dressed for bed time.  When asked why he wasn't in his PJs, he said he was too excited becaused he had been saved that he couldn't change!  Did I tell you what he told me that morning?  It took me by surprise, but my son told me that he took God's hand and sat in his lap.  I asked if he had a dream and he said no.  He just said he took God's hand and sat in his lap.

As my husband and I reflected on the night it dawned on me that this was the time of year we met him 5 years ago.  So I pulled up my journal and sure enough.....  We saw our son's referral picture on the 23rd of January 2007 and met him in person on January 24th, 2007.  On Monday, January 23rd, 2012, which is the 24th day in Russia, our son accepted Christ as his Savior 5 years to the date as when we met him.  I am by all means not superstitious, but I do truly believe that numbers are special.  The numbers in the Bible mean something and I by all means know it is in God's plan that our son was saved/adopted in God's family the same date he met his earthly adoptive family.  It takes my breath away to think about how God worked it together.

Healthy Living

If you have read any previous post, you will know I have started a journey of Healthier Living in my home....  and yes it is a journey.  I didn't clean out my pantry of all the bad stuff, but I am try new things and substituting BETTER things when I run out of the things in my pantry.  While I want to be healthier, I don't think that all that I have in my pantry should be wasted either.  Plus, I am not a big pre-packaged person anyway so my pantry isn't too bad.  Sure there are cake mixes for the "surprise, I have to take something to work tomorrow honey." type of situations...

Today, I want to share with you some ingredient conversions that you can do in your current baking.  I love making things from scratch, but my one down fall is using an ingredient when you don't know how it will turn out!  That scares me, but I have taken baby steps in trying these healthier solutions out and yes they are working!  Yes they tast good!  Very important!!

Butter
Yum...  
Butter is high in calories. 
Why not try these substitutions?

1.  Unsweetened applesauce:
  replace about half the amount of the called for butter with applesauce.  So if you end up needing 1 cup butter use 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup butter.  This works best in cakes.

2.  Unsweetened Pumpkin Puree:
Use the same as applesauce.

3.  Prune Puree:
Using Prune puree works well in chocolate treats and with goodies that have spices.
Use equal amounts of ingredient called for with the same amount of prue puree.

4.  Mashed Bananas:
Using mashed bananas works best with recipes that call for using OIL.  I wouldn't try using them in baked goods that are light and fluffy though.  Quick breads, coffee cakes and pancakes would work well with bananas.
How do you use it?  1 Cup of Oil= 1/2 cup of mashed banana.

How about Substitutions for Eggs?

1.  Unsweetened Applesauce:
1 egg = 1/4 cup of applesauce

2.  Vinegar and Baking Soda
For 1 egg = 1 tsp baking soda and 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

3.  Ground Flaxseed  { i love this one}
For 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed and 3 Tbsp of water = 1 egg

4.  Mashed Bananas
1 egg = 1/2 cup mashed banana

5.  Silken tofu
I probably won't ever use this one, but who knows...
Great for baking goods.
1 egg = 1/4 cup of whipped or pureed silken tofu

Sugar Substitues:

1.  Artificial sweeteners {I prefer to stay away from these}

2.  Molasses
1 1/3 cup of molasses = 1 cup sugar.
Recommend only replacing 1/2 of the called for sugar with this as molasses is a very strong flavor. 

3.  Honey
1 cup sugar = 3/4 cup honey + 1 Tbsp

One thing to consider is this:  If you are afraid to try these, just try replacing half of the ingredient to test it out before cutting the high calories out completely.  A little here and a little there will add up.  You will be surprised how they taste and knowing it is better for you will do us all good!

Through all this I am learning to be more self disciplined in my life.  Remember our physical health will often affect our spiritual health and emotional health.

Here's to more Healthy Living!