Chocolate paradise and every spiritual blessing

Chocolate surrounded me. Left, right, ahead, and behind. Everywhere I turned, chocolate lay in great mounds. Every shape and size, wrapped and unwrapped, with nuts and without, cream-filled and nougat, round and rectangle. I have dreamed of a chocolate paradise such as this many times, but this wasn’t a dream.

This time I stood in an actual chocolate paradise. This was not some average, American chocolate shop. I had the joy of salivating in a European chocolate establishment. (And yes, Hershey, they do it better.) The chocolate aroma overwhelmed me and I had to squash the thought of Eve eyeing the forbidden fruit.

Everything I could have hoped for was here – plus many I could have never imagined. The tantalizing smorgasbord of tastes and textures excited me. Chocolate with coconut for my husband? Three choices! Sugar-free chocolate for my diabetic father-in-law? Oh yes, more than he could ever eat! The experience far surpassed my greatest chocolate fantasy. I left with gifts in one hand and my own personal stash in the other.

This morning I fondly thought about this chocolate shop visit when I read through the Bible book of Ephesians. Here’s a couple of passages that thrilled me:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3, NIV

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20, NIV

I know my chocolate experience is a weak analogy for these glorious promises, but no physical comparison can measure up to the spiritual blessing God desires to pour into our lives. (So everything considered, being set loose with an unlimited chocolate selection was a good choice.)

Are you experiencing “every spiritual blessing in Christ?” Have you witnessed God do “immeasurable more than all you can ask or imagine?” I honestly can’t say I have, but I’m growing that direction. Want to come along?

You’re invited to join me in a study of the book of Ephesians. “Growing Up Together – a study of Ephesians,” begins Wednesday, January 18^th on my blogsite. You can visit my blog now for a bit more information.

Do you long to experience God’s blessing in your life? In what areas do you feel your faith needs to grow?

Kathy Howard calls herself a “confused southerner.” Raised in Louisiana, she and her husband have lived all over North America. She doesn’t know whether to say “coke” and “ya’ll” or “pop” and “you guys.” But this Southern girl loves to encourage women through teaching and writing about God’s Word. Find out more about Kathy’s Bible studies and speaking ministry and get lots of free resources at www.kathyhoward.org

Does this mean that it was okay for me to dig two chocolates out of the garbage where I had thrown them in righteous resolve on January Second? Okay, so I only took one bite out of each of them after dusting them off a little — I couldn’t stand it any more! They called to me all day long! — and then I threw them back in the garbage and carried the garbage out of the house so I couldn’t hear them calling.

Does this mean it was okay for me to eat the entire bag of homemade turtles that Gerry plopped onto my desk just before Christmas? I did not intend to eat the whole thing but I am a finisher – I usually finish what I start. That’s why I don’t start much. Before I knew it the bag was empty.

You and I both know my chocolate binge has to stop, unless I plan on increasing my dental budget and pants size! No, I think there was another message for me in this latest chocolate drop-off. I think God was saying what I needed to hear as this new year begins and I seek His guidance for my future in Christian ministry. He was saying, “Watch for Me.”

 If you have been a Christian any time at all you know, or have been told, God loves you and has a plan for your life. What you might not know by experience, and one possible reason you are having difficulty following God one yes at a time is you haven’t learned to recognize His divine incentives that encourage us to press on, and you are not experiencing the rewards of following Him. In other words, you are blind to the proofs of God.

Some friends of mine, born and raised in Germany, love hiking. They traveled all over the world, working on cruise ships as young adults, and hiked on their days off work every time the ship docked. They settled at long last in Calgary, Alberta so they could be close to an endless source of hiking trails in the nearby Canadian Rockies. When they were nearing 40, they had two babies in two years but kept right on hiking by packing them on their backs. When the toddlers grew too heavy to carry, they decided to train them to hike. After much coaxing, crying, and eventually, carrying, they wound up cutting their hikes short and turning back in frustration. Finally, they came up with a plan.

Along with the extra socks, bug repellant, sunscreen, moleskin, hats, rain capes, healthy snacks and water; they added a bag of individually wrapped chocolates. On the next hike, daddy jogged ahead a short distance and put two chocolates on the trail and then came back and he and mommy played a counting game: “Fifty steps to the chocolate!” Their initial hikes were short – no more than “four chocolates worth” since they were also health nuts, but chocolate-by-chocolate, little “Hansel and Gretel” learned to love hiking as their parents subtly began putting the chocolates further and further apart until finally, they only gave them as a reward once they reached their destination and ate their lunch. They always made sure to factor in enough time at the hike’s destination to thoroughly enjoy whatever it was they had traveled to see.

Chocolates on the trail

God does that for us who follow Him too. As a loving Father, He shows us the path He wants us to take; He clearly indicates the first step, making sure it is within our means to take it; He waits for us to say yes and step forward and begin walking; He places incentives at intervals along our path to encourage us to continue walking with Him; and He rewards us with Himself – a “hiking companion” whose presence gives us peace and power and whose provision ensures we have everything we need for the journey. (excerpt Following God One Yes at a Time)

Spiritual dryness is rampant among believers and too often, still a taboo subject, especially among people in Christian ministry or leadership. People don’t like to hear that the person they are “paying to have faith” is struggling to hang on to it! That’s why I hear from lots of strangers — they feel safe because we are in different churches, different cities, different countries. I don’t know who they know. So I won’t tell. I’m safe. They can confess to me without fear that I will blow their cover.

The question most often asked in these desperate emails is, “Can I lose my faith?” They ask this because many of them feel like it’s gone. In other words, people want to know, can a believer become an unbeliever? Or put another way, can a convert become un-converted? The sense of God’s presence they once knew has flown (more likely, seeped away or dried up) and they feel abandoned and alone.

The bad news is, these feelings are real! So real they influence the way we think and act.

The good news is, these feelings are wrong. Just as wrong as when a 70 pound anorexic woman feels fat.

I will never leave you or forsake you, God tells us over and over in His Word (Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5).

So why do some of us feel so forsaken? There are many causes, some we bring upon ourselves, some are foisted upon us, but the result is the same — feeling cut loose from a faith that once anchored us. Somehow, some way, we stopped trusting, we started doubting. We stopped following God in obedience and we began to say no — not with our lips, but with our life. We began to avoid God because we didn’t want to hear what He was saying. Maybe we were scared of what he might tell us. Maybe we were angry or hurt or disappointed and not in the mood to listen. Eventually, we couldn’t hear Him even when we tried because we had lost touch.

Whether or not we can pinpoint who to “blame” for what feels like a loss of faith isn’t really the main issue. Regardless of how we arrived in the wilderness, the fact is, when we’re there we don’t like it. We want our faith back. Or perhaps, we want a new and better faith. A stronger faith — one that is more resistant to “loss”!

Faith isn’t “lost” in a day any more than a city is built in a day. It is a slow process. In fact, faith isn’t something you can lose since it is His gift (Ephesians 2:8). It can feel lost, but it is never truly lost. We don’t actually lose our faith but we do lose our sense of God’s nearness slowly over time and often wrongly assume this feeling of abandonment to be a loss of faith. 

If you are feeling like your once vibrant faith has slipped away, let me assure you you have not lost your faith. Your faith is still there but, like an atrophied muscle, it looks different and isn’t as strong as it once was. You can get it working again and watch it grow, one yes at a time. Even if you are so “far gone” you doubt God is real (this is exactly where I was in my wilderness) pray this way:

Okay God, if you are real like I once believed you were, I will start saying yes to you again. But you’re going to have to come after me and show me what to say yes to because I don’t know where to find you! 

After praying, begin to watch and listen, not passively like an eavesdropper on strangers’ conversations, but actively and eagerly like a hunter in search of an elusive prey. If you think you hear him call, take a risk and say yes. And let it be the first yes in series of yeses that lead you back into a relationship with a living God.

1. I have stage fright so telling a funny story helps me relax.

2. My job is to engage the audience; if anyone yawns I feel like I’ve failed.

3. Time is precious and if people give me the gift of their time, I’d better make it worth their investment.

4. Humour has opened the door to most of my speaking opportunities so I try to meet the expectation of my audience by delivering some chuckles.

There are probably other reasons as well but I’ll save those for the therapist.

So here’s the deal. This week, while on tour in the USA with Girls Night Out  I was “leaving it all out there” as sportscasters like to say when the team plays hard. At the key point of a story, I flung myself off the stage and landed on the floor, about 18 inches below. This was not in the script. I am not a cat. I did not land on my feet.

At first there was raucous laughter, then gasps, then a hush fell over the room and a woman ran to where I was sprawled on the floor and asked if I was all right. “I don’t think so,” I said, laughing nervously as one does when one finds oneself splayed indelicately for all the world to see!

I got up, using my left arm gingerly, recounted a couple of funny anecdotes about other falls at other times (never while speaking!) and finished the program. On the way back to the hotel, Mary Messina (the director of Girls Night Out ) and I swung by Walmart where I grabbed a sling, Ibuprofen, and an ice-bag. By the time we got settled at the hotel I knew I had done something nasty and the decision was made for me to leave the tour early and have another speaker step in for the last three events.

I flew home the next day and Gerry took me straight to the Urgent Care Clinic where we discovered I had broken my left elbow.

It wasn’t a “bad” break, only a compression fracture on the top end of the smaller long bone in the forearm so I didn’t need a cast. Apparently the Walmart sling was adequate along with some high powered painkillers!

So I’m back home cooling my heels — and icing my elbow — and enjoying the care of my husband as he cooks and waits on me. (He drew the line at styling my hair though so I’ll have to pull on a toque if I plan to leave the house!)

So what do we do when plans change suddenly? Do we assume that we weren’t following God? That we had taken a wrong turn somewhere and if we’d been doing the right thing, this catastrophe would not have come upon us? Emphatically not! Life is sometimes hard. All of us experience seasons of suffering, of change, of loss, of betrayal, of discouragement, of pain, of illness. Does that mean we are somehow out of God’s will? I don’t think so.

Take a minute to read Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians if you don’t think followers of Jesus experience hard times. Nowhere does the Bible say that we will not suffer if we follow Jesus. In fact, it is more likely that we will suffer if we want to walk with Christ. Instead of letting our suffering distract or discourage us from following Him , we can use it as an opportunity to trust and to listen.

• Perhaps God wants to get our attention.
• Perhaps God wants to give us a chance to experience His love, comfort and care more personally.
• Perhaps God wants to redirect us.
• Perhaps God wants to give us empathy for others who suffer and a message of hope to carry to fellow strugglers.
• Perhaps we should pay closer attention to where the stage ends and open space begins! (in other words, we can learn from our mistakes)

So I am trusting and listening and believing that the God who knit me together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139) and who knew all my days before a single one of them began, also knew that on a rainy night in Paris Kentucky I would trade in my stage fright for stage flight and launch myself into an unexpected season of suffering. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to practice what I preach as well as great material for future stories!

Do you feel guilty when you find time — or take time — for a leisurely walk that doesn’t involve an errand or aerobic exercise? Does your conscience wag its finger at you when you wander out to your yard or garden or a nearby green space and just enjoy the aroma of growing things?

Well smarten up! I include myself in that reprimand. Remember Richard Swenson, MD, who wrote that fabulous book a few decades ago called Margin? That book was born out of his own experience. Apparently he was treating patients whose health was adversely affected by stress caused by overloading their lives  – leaving no margin. He described margin as the white space around the edges of a page in a book. They were writing their life all the way to the edges of the page, filling their every waking minute with too much and their bodies simply rebelled and made them sick. His “prescription” to many people was not pharmaceutical, but logical: cut back on your commitments and create some margin.

Then Swenson did something radical — he took a shot of his own medicine! He looked at his 80-hour work week and the problems that created for his family, his body, and his emotions and decided to cut his work hours in half — and his pay checque! It wasn’t easy, he confessed, but it paid off.

When the organizer of my town’s Diabetes Fund Drive called me this week to ask if I could go door to door in my neighborhood this fall — I have done it in the past — I looked at my schedule to see if it would work. The dates for the campaign were October 18 to November 18. I am scheuled to be in the USA speaking with Girls Night Out for all of those dates except one week around Halloween but during my week at home I have a speaking event in Edmonton. With the phone in one hand and my calendar in the other, I tried to figure out a way I could fit in the canvassing on the few days I am home with my husband, kids, grandkids and friends that I will have been away from for weeks. Seriously! 

Then I came to my senses, remembered Dr. Swenson’s advice and did what he recommended — say no, not to bad stuff, but to good stuff that is just too much. I politely and graciously said, “I am very sorry but I can’t help you this year,” and I explained why. The woman was even more gracious in her response, completely absolving me of any guilt for saying no. Nonetheless, I still felt guilty for several hours even though I knew I had made the right decision.It was hard to say no. But I eventually got over it when I thought about when that week in November rolls around and I am back home for a few fleeting days of rest, recovery and reconnection with my loved ones. Not only I will be glad I said no, but my family will be glad too.

What’s your life like? Is every page full right to the edges? Does that feeling of importance at being busy compensate for the lack of enjoyment you could have if you had some margin in your life? Is there some good stuff you need to cut out, or cut back on, that will give  you the margin you need for wellness?

I wrote this post in September but never posted it. Why not? I was probably too busy! However, Here I am “living” the very week I was writing about two months ago and I am so thankful I said no to a good thing because it has allowed me the time to reconnect with my nearest and dearest. Tomorrow, when I leave town for another 10 day speaking tour, I go refreshed emotionally and physically because I said yes to margin.

Warren Harbeck (and his lovely wife Mary Anna pictured here) is quite well known in my hometown. His weekly column, Coffee With Warren, runs in our local paper as well as online. I had the pleasure of being a recent coffee guest of Warren. We discovered we had much in common — our love of words, our heart for First Nations People, and our faith.

On seeing the title of my first book From Faking it to Finding Grace, Warren instinctively commented that the type of faith that cannot survive in the real world is “childish” faith when what we need is “childlike” faith. His recent column aptly illustrates this concept. Enjoy:

My feet have been teaching me a valuable lesson lately about walking with God.

About two years ago, I started having a lot of pain in my feet. Some days, it was almost impossible to walk, and the strolls along park trails that I used to so enjoy ceased being enjoyable, and finally ceased altogether.

Doctors’ prescriptions helped some – for a while, at least. But the problems soon got worse.

So I tried changing my footwear, but that didn’t do much good, either.

Not much good at first, that is, until Adam Doyle, a savvy young clerk at Trailblazer Camping and Outdoor Store in Cochrane, studied my feet and made a rather startling discovery.

Now, all my adult life I’ve required narrow-fitting shoes of a certain size. It never occurred to me that my feet would change size with age. In fact, in recent years, any time I’d purchased new shoes, this or that clerk would make a quick assessment and confirm, yes, I had narrow feet, and shoes in my usual size should work just fine.

But lately, they didn’t. Even though they felt good at the time of purchase, it wasn’t long before my feet were hurting again, especially after the heels wore down a bit.

Adam went to the trouble of remeasuring a whole bunch of things about my feet and concluded that, although I still had narrow heels, other parts of my feet had expanded. He suggested I try a larger-size shoe with a different kind of heel, then discussed with me a special way of lacing them so that my feet fitted comfortably at the heels while having more room at the arches and toes.

Wow! In less than a week, I was walking normally. The other day, I even took a leisurely fall-in-the-foothills stroll with my wife along Cochrane’s friendly creek-side trails, the first such walk in many a moon. I breathed in leafy autumn aromas and listened once more to the birds and babbling brook. Life was good.

The problem? My old shoes were too small. My conception of proper fit had not kept pace with the reality of my more mature needs as a 71-year-old.

So, what does this have to do with my faith?

It reminded me of the 1952 book, Your God Is Too Small, by J.B. Phillips.

Phillips was a British Bible translator who gained fame for his very popular modern English paraphrase of the New Testament. In Your God Is Too Small, he writes:

“The trouble with many people today is that they have not found a God big enough for modern needs. While their experience of life has grown in a score of directions, and their mental horizons have been expanded to the point of bewilderment by world events and by scientific discoveries, their ideas of God have remained largely static.”

It’s “obviously impossible for an adult to worship” such childish conceptions of God, he says, “unless he is prepared to deny his own experience of life.”

I had read Your God Is Too Small many years ago when just beginning my own involvements in Bible translation. Was I finally coming to terms with some of my immature conceptions of God as I confronted my bewilderment over a painful misfit in the face of adult realities?

Rethinking Phillips’ words required that I distinguish between childish and child-like. They’re definitely not the same.

A child-like faith is one that instinctively longs for God, much as a newborn child longs for its mother – a longing relationship based on trust.

Childish is quite a different matter. Childishness is all about a fantasy world of demanding our own way regardless of the needs of others and treating God as our personal Santa-in-the-Sky.

A mature faith is one that has discarded such childish narcissistic, escapist notions and has embraced a walk with God that, characterized by upward-looking child-like trust, is outward-looking in its relationship to others and the universe. It’s simply what’s expected of us as human beings, created in the image of a compassionate God, experiencing life in the real world. 

So, returning to the example of my feet, it’s true, of course, that growing older is not only a question of having shoes of the appropriate size for my needs now.

None of us would seriously question the need for regular eye exams, for instance, to make sure our glasses were the right prescription for our advancing years.

And what’s that my wife’s saying? Something about having my hearing checked, too?

But it’s been my feet that have been crying out for my attention these past months. And what they’ve been saying is to learn a valuable spiritual lesson about a faith that fits like a comfortable pair of shoes:

Good for the soles; good for the soul.

(Reprinted: “A faith that fits like a comfortable pair of shoes” from www.coffeewithwarren.com
 with Warren Harbeck
 Cochrane Eagle, September 28, 2011)

“Okay” said the man, “I attended church every Sunday.”

“That’s good,” said St Peter, “that’s worth two points.”

“Two points?” the man asked, “Well, I also gave 10% of all my earnings to the church.”

“Well, let’s see.” said St Peter, “that’s worth another 2 points. Did you do anything else?”

“Two points? Golly. How about this: I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for homeless veterans.”

St Peter replied, “Fantastic, that’s certainly worth a point.”

“Hmmm . . . well,” said the man, “I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, even in my heart.”

“That’s wonderful,” agreed St Peter, “that’s worth 3 points!”

“THREE POINTS!!” cried the man, “ at this rate the only way I get into Heaven is by the

grace of God !”

“Come on in!”

(thanks to Dave Wiggins, volunteer chaplain at our local senior longterm care facility, for this illustration that he gleaned from the Net, author unknown)

Simple, Fast, Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie: easy to make and the best you’ll ever eat 


 Only 3 Ingredients:

• 1 15-ounce can pumpkin pie filling: follow the recipe on the can (make sure you buy pie filling not pumpkin puree unless you want to add the sugar and spices yourself)
• substitute almond milk for evaporated milk (soy milk also works)
• 1 large egg

Buy frozen piecrust, or packaged pie crust mix (add 4 Tbsp water and roll out) or use your favorite recipe or con your mom into making it.

directions: prepare pie crust first:

Remove frozen crust from the freezer and let it thaw and then oh, so carefully transfer the thawed crust into your own metal or tin pie plate so your guests will think you made it from scratch OR mix piecrust according to directions on package and transfer dough to 9-inch, 4 cup capacity pie plate. Trim edge of pastry 1/2 inch beyond edge of the pie plate. Fold excess under to build a thick crust and flute with your thumb and forefinger like your momma used to do. If that doesn’t work, squish the edge with a fork.

To prepare pie: 
Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Dump pie filling, egg and almond milk into a bowl and mix with a whisk or electric mixer until it is fully blended. Pour the filling into the unbaked piecrust and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375ºF and continue to bake for 35 – 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.  It may be a bit wobbly still, but it will firm up as it cools. It has a lovely mousse-like texture and never gets overly firm or rubbery, as traditional pumpkin pie is wont to do.

Allow the pie to cool on a wire rack for 2 hours. Serve or refrigerate until ready to serve. I served it for Canadian Thanksgiving dinner and my guests raved, saying it was the best pumpkin pie they had ever eaten. Yours will too. Bon Apetit!

Many lawyers will tell you that a litigant increases her chances of a successful reversal if she increases the number of arguments in her presentation. “Conventional wisdom” says that a brief that makes five arguments is more likely to be successful than a brief that relies on only one argument. Conventional wisdom, like most wisdom of the world, seldom applies in the Christian realm.

As an attorney who has worked on numerous appeals over more than twenty years, I am always impressed anew by the powerful statement of faith that the following hymn makes: “I need no other argument, I need no other plea; It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me.” No need to study the major tenets of several religions to know that I have eternal life! No need to know the answer to every mystery of life! No need to worry that I may not be “quite good enough” if God grades on a sliding scale.

This powerful hymn reflects the peace and confidence that flows from the absolute assurance that at the moment of my death, I will pass into heaven, as a result of only one thing: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is human nature to want to rely on as many alternative arguments as one can muster. Yet, in the most significant decision we each face in life, we must truly grasp that our church membership and our efforts to “do something for God” mean nothing on the salvation scoreboard. The only fact that will mean anything when I one day stand before the Lord Almighty is what Jesus Christ accomplished. It truly IS “enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me.” And you.

“Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Ps. 73:25a NASB

‘Cease striving, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10a. NASB

By Terry Wuester Milne Osgoode

I got as far as verse 13 and Whammo! The slacker says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the streets!” I was pinned. It hit me: how often do I use my fear as an excuse for not changing a behaviour, a habit, an attitude, a practice? Too often! It’s far too easy for me to look at where I could be, where God wants to take me, and back away in fear. 

Fear is real and I’m not trying to downsize it’s power to paralyze or its crippling effects. I have battled it all my life. However, I also know that fear can be overcome because, with God’s help, I’ve done it. But perhaps I use fear as an excuse long after it’s lost its grip. Why would I do this, I wondered? It’s the easy way and the easy way is…well, easier!

Fear’s greatest weapon in my life has been it’s ability to sap my confidence — to convince me I can’t change. So while I was absorbing the dawning truth that I sometimes blame my fear for avoiding change when in fact, I am just too lazy to work at it, God sent me this verse as His warm embrace: I have instructed you today–even you–so that your confidence may be in the Lord. (Prov 22:19) Aaahhhh. Thank you Father that You never call us to do anything alone. Hand in hand, heart to heart, we walk this faith journey together.

Holding on to Jesus’ hand, I’m heading out into lion territory — how about you?