As usual, when I am working on losing weight, my mind is FOCUSED on food.
These days, healthy clean eating is becoming really important. I wish I had paid better attention to a dad who ate healthy his whole life, while the rest of us ate what we wanted to...
Today, for the fun of it, can you name your favorite meals?
Here are mine...
1. Dinner at Emma's in Tromso, Norway, 5 years ago when we went to our niece's wedding in my mother's birthplace. Everything on our dinner menu was so over the top that I can't even remember what all was there, only that I had never had better food in my life. Fish so fresh you knew it came from the water, 2 blocks away, that very morning. Each item was so specially prepared that the whole dinner was a once in a lifetime thing.
2. My mother's roast, potatoes, carrots and onions, every Sunday of my growing up years, which was baked to perfection as we sat in sunday school and church getting spritually fed. As we came in the door, she was already in the gravy making mode, and putting a salad together for our 'sit down' feast.
3. Norwegian pancakes like my mother made. Morning, noon or night, always wonderful. My brother used to come in later and eat them cold. There were never any left overs that he didn't finish!
4. Potatiskorv. A Norwegian sausage made from veal, potatoes and onions, hand ground and put into sausage casings and then boiled. She usually made little potatoes with melted butter and parsley to serve with them. It's a good thing I don't know how to make potatiskorv or I would be in big trouble!
5. Pappadeaux fried shrimp with ceasar salad and on a big splurge day... creme brulee. Every taste is delicious!
I have to add a #6... every bite of Thanksgiving Day meals. :)
So... those are mine, what are some of your favorite meals?
I have some eggs hard boiling, for lunch later, with a fruit smoothie. Balanced, healthy and good, but not even in the ballpark with the 6 listed above!
P.S.... Debbie just reminded me that I forgot to include steak and prime rib, and also anything Tex-Mex. Yikes!!
How do you know when you are praying... or worrying?
So many times I find that what I am worrying about becomes the prayer that I voice to God. I explain to him how things are, and then ask for his help.
Those worrying thoughts are usually me, analyzing and problem solving.
I found this little note my dad wrote - it was in one of his Bibles. Dad jotted down everything, especially when it was important to him.
"Worrying is not praying.
It is an urgent call to pray!
Worrying centers on the problem,
praying focuses on the solution."
When my heart and my prayers are focused on Jesus, the answers are in his hands, the safest place to be.
When I am worrying... I am trying to 'fix it'. I have done that more times than I have trusted God right at the beginning of a problem. Yes, he does expect us to use the brains he gave us, but the first step should be asking him for the solution, and then trusting him as I go, praying for him to guide the circumstances. I do that, but too often it is after I've worked it all around and hassled in my mind and heart as to what I should do.
Like someone said... 'when all else fails, pray'.
I do find that my thoughts and my prayers are all kind of mixed up together, and I often am praying as I am thinking things through. I am not on my knees, I am running around doing my day. But even those prayers can be worry unless I am trusting God. Praying can sometimes sound like the anxious thoughts that swirl.
Focusing on the solution means I am focused on trusting God, even before the solution comes.
My mind and heart are stilled when I do that, with or without the answers.
There is always a sense of doing the right thing when I let go of what worries me, and trust that God will handle it. Sometimes the process of getting there is much longer than it should be.
1 Peter 5:7 says "1 Peter 5:7 says "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." There are so many scriptures that teach this, but the big message for me in this verse is that little word ALL. Like my dad said, after he had studied that word at length... all he could find all to mean was all.
It's worth repeating...
"Worrying is not praying.
It is an urgent call to pray!
Worrying centers on the problem,
praying focuses on the solution."
1. Dinner at Emma's in Tromso, Norway, 5 years ago when we went to our niece's wedding in my mother's birthplace. Everything on our dinner menu was so over the top that I can't even remember what all was there, only that I had never had better food in my life. Fish so fresh you knew it came from the water, 2 blocks away, that very morning. Each item was so specially prepared that the whole dinner was a once in a lifetime thing.
