Ahhhh...Humility

Seems we spend our early twenties gaining and exercising confidence and then we spend the rest of our adulthood learning how to temper that confidence with humility.

As painful as the thought is to me, the last couple of years have been about growing some humility. It's painful because in recognizing what God is doing I am required to join Him in this work! And, man, humility...I mean really...how much more painful does it get? At least that's what's going through my head.

Death to self. Submission. Not my will but His will. Not just admitting but believing that I don't have the answer. Trying to change things I worked so hard to create - whether consciously or unconsciously.

But I'm realizing that if I'm going to do great things for Jesus this is a lesson I should (at the very least) get used to.

Ten Commandments on "This American Life"

I was pleasantly surprised to find last weeks theme for the NPR radio show "This American Life" was the Ten Commandments - the biblical Ten Commandments. I don't have any strong opinions about the coverage. I guess it seemed fair and unitarian in nature. I'm still impressed that they tackled this biblical text on NPR.

Mornings Like This One

On Monday my son woke up extra early so we ended up walking to the store a little before 7am. In a drastic change of course the weather has turned (dare I say it) summer-ish. It was 50 degrees and clear skies when we left the house. The baby snoozed, I did some shopping, and on our way home I had to admit that I know why so many people have settled in this part of the world. From one of the higher points in our neighborhood I could see Mt. Rainier, the Olympic Mts, and the Cascade Mts. There are not many days that I meet the formidable presence of Mt. Rainier while walking in my neighborhood. It always takes me by surprise. Upon reflection I wonder how I could forget that huge snow-capped mountain that seem so close I could touch it.

I was tired that morning. And I had spent most of the return trip physically and emotionally struggling. The way home is almost entirely uphill and my 20 lb son along with a few groceries made it so the uneven sidewalk became literal stopping blocks for the stroller. At the same time I was cursing my husband for not having to get up with my early rising son.

By the time I reached the high point in my walk, where the mountains were revealed to me, I was feeling allot better. We were starting the last 5 minutes of our walk home and it was all downhill - at least until the next time we need to walk to the store.

Recipe for Left Over Meat

I am a big fan of the roast. I'm trying to perfect my roast chicken and my husband and I love to eat the leg and thigh hot out of the oven. Usually that leaves the breast that ends up getting used as left-overs. A pretty easy thing to use. However I'm stuggling to get my husband to eat chicken salad sandwiches - which was my first use of the meat. I found this recipe in a Cooking Light magazine. The recipe calls for 1/2 lb of cooked shrimp but I think this salad handles chicken and probably even pork and beef very well. It's a satisfying salad with nice flavor. And all in all I think it's fairly economical. WARNING: This recipe makes ALOT of salad.

Maybe you'll enjoy it too:

Soba Slaw Salad with Peanut Dressing

6 - 8 oz uncooked soba (buckwheat) noodles
6 cups shredded red cabbage
2 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
1/2 lb shredded or chopped meat of your choice (I think you can add as much or as little meat as you want)
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 1/2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter (I think chunky would work, too)
2 teaspoons Thai chile paste with garlic ( I love the heat, but if I'm sharing with a group I only put 1 large teaspoon of chile paste)
2 tablespoons chopped dry-roasted peanuts (I usually don't add these)

1. Cook noodles, drain, rinse with cold water
2. Combine noodles, shredded cabbage, carrot, 1/2 cup green onions, and meat in a large bowl
3. Combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, canola oil, peanut butter and chile paste in a small bowl; stir with whisk until blended.
4. Add dressing to noodles, cabbage, carrot, and meat.
5. Garnish with rest of the green onion and peanuts

Enjoy.

I find that this salad makes a great lunch as well as a nice snack. OK, can you tell I'm a big fan of this salad!

My Podcast MUST HAVEs

I love a good radio show. Do you?

NPR, baby!

Thanks to Podcasts I can download the latest This American Life and Studio 360 and listen to them when I have time to take a long walk.

Supporting the "Shameless"

I love the courage and honesty this woman has.

The Illusive Stride

I did a lot of running in my youth. I've had my splits timed more than I'd like to remember. I was never really good at running, but it was what I did all through High School. I ran long distance so I loved those times (and they weren't very often come to think of it) when I hit my stride. I define 'hitting your stride' as being able to hit your time goals and feeling great while doing it.

I walk these days. My body is really not designed to run but it is definitely made to walk. As I walked around the lake the other day I felt like I was just hitting my stride right after I had finished approximately 2 miles. I felt great! The sun was shining, my baby was not crying, and I was a mama about to finish her 3 mile walk around the lake.

Walking is also a great way to get some thinking done. "What does it mean to 'hit my stride' in other areas of my life?" I wondered during my walk.

Lately, 'stride' has been hard to come by in my life. Before I know it the circumstances have changed and I have to speed up or slow down and I'm 'off my stride'. Pregnancy is a great teacher when it comes to learning how to live a stride-less life.

Marriage can also be a great, discombobulating life force, something that often throws me off when I think I've hit my stride. In the last few weeks my husband and I seem to be running in circles. These are not ordinary - mutually exclusive circles - these circles require us to run into the other person, who is running in the opposite direction. Funny thing is, we can't even see the other person until we've collided. And we seem to do it over - and over - and over again. We've been the most ungraceful ever in our married life, as far as I can tell.

We found out a couple of weeks ago that my husband did not get the job he was seeking in our former home town. And unfortunately we never really dealt with what it meant to lose this opportunity. We never really morned the loss of an opportunity to move back home.

I had already make plans about how I was going to spend my time with all the free child care that we would have available to us back home. I was planning to have our extended family gather for Sunday supper at our house. I was planning on going back to school. I was planning on watching my nephew regularly so my sister could work child free a couple hours a week. I was praying about how God would use me in the church where my husband and I met. And I was excited about all these things. But, I had gotten ahead of myself and God. My husband had not been offered the job yet.

It was about a week after we found out that my husband didn't get that job that we collided. Since we missed the step of processing this loss there was alot of emotion that seemed to come out of no where. Mostly it took the form of anger - that stern unmoving kind of anger. Really only a couple of days ago did we finally break through the muddle of anger and frustration and finally get to a little understand and grace.

Maybe this is a preview of things to come...maybe God is preparing us for great changes...I don't really know. What I do know is that next time a disappointment of this magnitude comes along I hope we can allow eachother the space and grace to morn.