Tasty Thursday – Chicken Cornbread Casserole

This is a great casserole.  It tastes delicious and freezes well.  Great to fix for a friend who needs a meal prepared for them.  They can always freeze it and eat it later! I know it has a LOT of cornbread in it but for those Southern girls out there who have cornbread with EV.VER.RY meal – it shouldn’t be a problem =)

Chicken Cornbread Casserole 

1/2 c. butter or margarine

1/4 c. chopped onion

1/4 c. celery

1 c. chicken broth

2 – 2 1/2 c. cooked chicken

1 c. chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can chicken and rice soup

4 c. cornbread crumbs

Saute’ onions and celery in the margarine.  Heat broth and soups; pour over cornbread crumbs and mix well.  Add onions, celery and chicken to cornbread mixture.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Add more broth or hot water- if needed.  Place in a greased casserole.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Go on over to The Pumpkin Patch to add your recipes or see more! 

How will it work out?

 Lisa over at The Preacher’s Wife,  has served up lesson 3 in her “I AM – so you don’t have to be” study.  Girls, if you aren’t joining in this – you should be because even though I have never heard her hubby preach, I believe she is giving him a run for his money with these lessons!Lisa, I cannot tell you how much the LORD is using you to speak to me in this study. “He has placed you just in time, has saved you by his loving kindness, and either has given you or will give you a desire from the lower deep of your nature to accomplish what HE intends in your life”  OH MY, what a thing to say and for me to remember!  I’ve posted before about the difficulties the church hubby and I serve is having.  LOTS of hurt and pain.  This study is so SO speaking to my situation.  Let me tell you a little story before I get to the questions (bear with me here).  Before we moved here to the place we live now, we served a different church about an hour and a half away.  We were comfortable there – loved there – and content.  EXCEPT – we both began to feel that after 7 years there, maybe it was time for someone else to come along side this church and maybe it was time for us to move on.  We decided that instead of saying a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to moving – we’d say ‘yes’ to whatever God decided. So, hubby told his DS (district superintendent – in the Methodist church we are on an itinerant system – if you want more info on this just email me and ask – i’ll be glad to fill you in as best I can) that if we needed to move this year we would.

We were told that next March (of 2006) that yes, indeed we would be moving to a church that was about 30 minutes from where we were before.  Just on the other side of the city where we lived.  How fabulous we thought! – Our girls could still have some stability. Still see friends and still attend their dance classes with their friends.  We visited the church who was going to give us a housing allowance  – so we began looking for a home.

We decided to rent a home for a year and see from there what we wanted to do – so we went looking.  I’m NOT kiddin’  ya’ll – the very day we found a house we were ready to sign to rent, we got a phone call from hubby’s DS saying that his appointment had been changed (by this time it is May 2006) and we were now moving about an hour from where we were and EVERYTHING – literally everything changed.

We weren’t too happy to say the least.  BUT we worked through- choosing to trust that the LORD is in control of all (that thing, Lisa that you said about a “series of unrecurring incidents”) these changes and go with it. 

We moved to this church and began serving here in July 2006.  You have read here and here about the things that this church needs.  I have always believed that God sent us here for a purpose and we are to do it.  AND, Lisa, you are reinforcing and causing me to believe EVEN more that God is in CONTROL of this whole situation!    SO, with all that said – here are my answers to the questions.

1. It was stated in the Lesson that God has made you “once, twice, three times a lady.” Where are you in this progression? Obviously we have all been physically born, but are you ‘twice a lady’? Have you been born again spiritually? This may be a private matter you’d like to discuss confidentially. If so, email me. If you have already received this gift, write a brief prayer of thanksgiving or testimony.  
I grew up in the Methodist church so there wasn’t a lot of talk about being saved — but there was talk about asking Jesus into my heart and believe that those are the same thing. As I grew up though and reached adulthood my spirituality has grown so much more than what my 9 year old self was really able to comprehend.  I am definitely “born again” — although we don’t say that in the Methodist church, I know that Jesus died for my sins and is my savior!

Dear God, thank you for loving me so much even in my sin that you gave your son to save my life!  I cannot fathom most of the time why you would do this – because human love doesn’t reach that far.  BUT it is awesome Lord, that yours does and I am thankful this day that one day because of you grace and glory, that I will be in heaven with you!  Amen!

2. Are you three times a lady? Has God given you a stirring deep within your Spirit to be a ‘deliverer’? Do you have a desire or are you already meeting a need in the life of the church, a particular ministry (such as jail ministry, food ministry, etc.) or perhaps individuals who share common issues?  OK – I’m beginning to see a theme in each thing that the LORD is leading me to read these days – faith- belief – even Moses.  A few weeks ago the Lord gave the Hebrew 11 to read  — coincidence that it is one of our scriptures for today? No, no I think not!  I am grabbing on to God that he will use hubby and I to be the “deliverer” our church so desperately needs.  And the REASON I think he chose us — we are so absolutely unequipped for this challenge — only by HIS doing and with HIM will be be done!  The desire is there — the how – not so much yet.  We will wait and see.

3. Do you ever get tired of waiting for that opportunity to do something worthwhile for God? Do you ever feel God is using someone else instead of you? Yes!  Most of the time when I feel that I have no place and can do nothing well…………..I see HIM using others and long to be used.  I think all that God has been teaching me in the past months about FULLY focusing on HIM is leading up to how he will use me.  It is tense, scary and exciting all at the same time!

4. What do you consider ‘worthwhile ministry’? Are you like me and sometimes find yourself mistakenly thinking it has to be Big to be Important? All I can say, as I hang my head in shame, is yes.  Sometimes my pride wants me to be the center of attention and be doing the big and important things.  Lord, please forgive my pride!

5. Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts test? If yes, what are yours? If no, here’s a good one from Ephesians 4 Ministry. Will you take it and come back with a response? Knowing some of you like I already do, I can almost pick out what your gift is before you say it. I can’t wait to see if I’m right! I’ve done one but it has been a while .  I will go do this one and see…………OK – so I got  Pastor/Shepherd – 19, Showing Mercy- 18, Teaching 17 and then it went drastically down from there……was it what you thought? =)

Looking forward to reading other responses when I have time!

In HIM -

Mindy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday’s In Other Words

Today’s IOW is being hosted by Christine over at Fruit In Season.

“Busyness is not a spiritual gift.”
From an interview with
~ Lisa Harper ~

I have to say that I agree whole heartedly with the rest of the ladies who have voiced their opinions on people being too busy and agreeing to TOO many things in the church.  I agree that we have to lay it all at our Father’s feet and let him be our guide to serving Him!   I also think that we can get so bogged down in the “helping” that we no longer have any joy in it and then it is time to rethink things.  

I would also like to share that in our church, hubby doesn’t like the word ‘volunteer’ because we humans tend to volunteer out of our extra time.  And, really – who has any extra time these days? He choose instead to use the word servants because as it says in Isaiah we are servants chosen by Him.  We serve, rather than volunteer, when we aren’t doing it all and when we DO take the time to let the Lord lead us to where he wants us to serve.

I think we have to be very careful, though, not to use this as an excuse. “That’s just not my thing.”  and “God didn’t give me the gift to serve in that area”. These are excuses I have heard more times than I wish to remember. Anyone who works in church ministry KNOWS how difficult it is to find people who are willing to serve.  It is important for us to realize that in the same way that we can be doing more than our share  in our churches when we aren’t offering things up to the Lord, we can also be giving excuses and doing nothing by not allowing HIM to guide us.

This leads me to one of my biggest pet peeves. Anyone ever heard this excuse?  “I just don’t have time because my kids have dance, soccer, baseball…..(fill in whatever the kids do here) and I don’t have time to do anything else.   My worry is that our “busyness” becomes more about keeping up with the Joneses and giving our children the opportunity to do everything they wish to the detriment of serving the Lord.   I know people whose kids end up having extra curricular activities on Wednesday night and even on SUNDAYS where they are not attending church anymore.   I have to wonder – what are we teaching our kids by allowing this to happen?  I’m afraid that our children are receiving a message that our world revolves around them and whatever their schedule brings that is what we will do.  Our schedules should NEVER revolve around our children…..they should revolve around the Lord and serving HIM – however that may be personally for each of us.  When our world revolves around the Lord, then we are teaching our children that HE and HIS desires are what is most important and not them. 

I fear that in a world where giving our children more than we had has become the norm (not a bad thing in itself) we are giving in to exactly what the devil wants us to.  We are so busy in the secular things of life that we have no time left for God.  I fear that many of us need to revamp our priorities and that we can use those excuses I mentioned above as our way OUT of serving the Lord.

So, I think this quote can be seen in more than one way.  Busyness, whether inside the church  or out, isn’t a spiritual gift! I propose that each of us take a time to look at our busyness and see where we fall.  Are you being a “Martha”? Are your children the center of your universe?  And most importantly , where is GOD on my priority list?  Why am I so busy?

Click on the link to Christine above to read other takes on this quote or to add your own!

In HIM -

Mindy 

Whatever happened to grace?

I hesitate to even write this post.  I have been floundering back and forth for the last few days about it but I feel like I just have to do it because I have thought a LOT about it!

Everyone knows about the massacre at Virginia Tech.  And everyone has been saddened and outraged at what has happened……….as they should.  Everyone is doing things for and memorializing the 32 victims of Cho Seung-Hui….as they should.

But I can’t help but wonder – where is the grace?  NOW – Before you get all riled up at me — I know I am not in the situation of ANY of these people so I don’t know how I would personally respond, but I wonder why no one is taking the time to think that there were really 33 victims here.

Cho Seung-Hui did some absolutely terrible things, yes.  But, wasn’t he also suffering?  I, for one, have to believe that he WAS suffering from something – because people don’t do these sorts of things usually if they aren’t suffering in some way.  This boy was in trouble and for whatever reason no one was able to help him.  And by killing himself and others no one will ever be able to help him. 

I wonder about his salvation.  Did he know God?  Did he know of our Lord’s saving grace?  Is he a soul that is lost now because he didn’t know about God? Did anyone ever take the time to tell Cho how much Jesus loved him?  And how much it was breaking the heart of God that Cho was so unhappy and unwell.

And what about his family?  His POOR family.  They are left here to deal with it all.  Not only do they have to deal with the loss of a son but they have been left behind to deal with all of the horrors that their son committed.  I feel so sorry for them all.

This past weekend I had someone say to me that they “never wanted hear the name Cho Seung- Hei again!”

Now, please tell me – where is the grace in that?  Doesn’t God call us to forgive people and love them?  Maybe we just all need time to work through the horror but I want to scream that no one on the news ever says anything about how sad a life Cho must have led.  How unloved he must have felt.  

I am trying to wrap my mind around all of this and what I have been thinking about today is that love is a choice…..not a feeling.  We might not feel like loving Cho or his family but isn’t that EXACTLY what God calls us to do?

Again, I’m just wondering where is the grace?  Does anyone else out there understand what I am saying?

I hope that I am not offending anyone out there…..if I have – I am sorry for that.  I am just trying to figure it all out and see things the way God might see them….I feel a great urgency in my life lately to try and look at things the way God does…..and somehow I think God sees 33 victims in this situation and not just 32.

Thanks for reading!

Mindy

I WON! I WON! I WON!!!

Last week, I entered the Spring Into Summer blog challenge with my post entitled Blogger Blessings.  I just learned that I WON!!!!

The only other thing I have EVER won in my life was a quilt made by my Granny and her friends in the Quilting Club where I grew up!!! I am SOOOO excited!  I won a blog design done by none other than Darlene Schadt herself! I am so excited that I feel like jumping up and doing a dance – but I won’t.  Instead I will just walk around with this grin on my face all night long!

THANKS SO MUCH Darlene for choosing my post!

I just can’t wait to get my new blog design up and going!  I know it will be fabulous!

Test Results

I just wanted to give everyone who prayed for me last week during all of that testing an update on what is going on.

I saw the Dr. this morning and she said that there wasn’t any reflux during the tests at all. However, my esophagus is contracting 90% of the time and it isn’t supposed to do that.

So, she has given me medication to take for the next month that hopefully will relax my esophagus and I return to her for followup in a month.

 You all are awesome! THANKS for the prayers.  Pray the medicine does the trick, please!

Mindy

FLIP FLOPS!!!

Hey everybody. Check out these flip flops! Aren’t they just precious?!!?

  If you would like custom made flops for your little girl  (or for yourself) -email me!  Prices start at $8 a pair!

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Tasty Thursday – Easy Lasagna

This recipe comes from my aunt and brings back wonderful childhood memories.  This lasagna was my favorite as a child and when I need a good comfort food this is my go to! Enjoy!

1lb. ground beef

1 jar thick spaghetti sauce

1 1/2 cups water

1 15oz. container of ricotta cheese

3 c. shredded mozzarella or Monterrey Jack cheese

1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese

 2 eggs

1/4 c. chopped parsley

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

8 oz. lasagna, uncooked

Brown beef in a 3- quart saucepan; drain off excess fat.  Add sauce and water.  Simmer about 10 minutes.  Combine remaining ingredients except lasagna, for filling.  Pour about 1 cup of sauce on bottom of a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan.  Layer 3-4 pieces of uncooked lasagna over the sauce; cover with 1 1/2 cups of sauce. Spread half of the cheese filling over the sauce. Repeat layers of lasagna, and cheese filling.  Top with layer of lasagna and remaining sauce.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 55- 60 minutes. Remove foil; bake 10 minutes longer. Allow to stand for about 10 minutes  before cutting for easier handling.

Yield: 8 – 10 servings

 **To add your own recipes or check out others – go on over to The Pumpkin Patch!**

To Be Beautiful

Lisa at The Preacher’s Wife, is leading this fabulous study on the Great I AM! (so we don’t have to be).  Today was lesson 2 and I want to join in the discussion.  The topic of “being beautiful” is a big pickle for me.   The discussion questions and my answers are below.

What is your initial response when anyone suggests you are beautiful? My initial response whenever someone tells me I’m beautiful is one of distrust.  That  “yeah, right” kind of answer.  Even though I am thanking them on the outside – I am analyzing every reason (every blemish I see) why I’m not beautiful………all those thoughts everyone sees in themselves – my eyes aren’t symmetrical and there are HUGE bags underneath them, my nose gets bigger with each passing year, I need to see a dentist and have some bleach applied to my teeth, I’m too short……….and so forth and so on.  This brings me to question #2.

Do you find you engage in a lot of negative ’self-talk’? How much of your thought life does this form of thinking consume?   I do have a lot of Negative ’self- talk’ in my life but not as much now as I once had.  As a small child I was abused by a caregiver which eventually led me to a different kind of sinful path where I felt like my body was the only way anyone would find me worthy of their attentions. This abuse has also affected my marriage and my life in a myriad of other ways not the least of which is my self- esteem.  I – in the past – had a LOT of negative self- talk and to this day can find myself in a very pessimistic attitude often.  My thought life, at one point was probably about 90% negative self- talk.  My self-esteem was nil!  It has been a long road and a lot of years dealing with this  issue in my life and I still have a long way to go but I know that when I get into that negative self- talk it is time to do some praying and working on things with God.  And trying to see me as HE sees me.  This is a hard one to do but I am getting better at it.

Has it ever occurred to you that you are a City Girl? How do you plan to use this knowledge?I love, love, LOVE the thought of being a City Girl. (Can we get a tshirt printed, please?)  Of being someone who people see as different.  I want to be that girl – the one people KNOW isn’t from around here and I don’t just mean by way of being the preacher’s wife and so obviously I’m not “from” here.  In the study,  Lisa said that what drew people to Jesus was his Spirit.  I want people to know ME by the Spirit that dwells within me and not by the selfish, ugly person that I sometimes allow to win out.   I want to be so glorifying God in my life that people are drawn to Him through me — and not the opposite to happen.  I don’t want to be the person who people in the world look at and say – “Well, if she is what being a Christian is then count me out!”.  I have just finished doing Breaking Free by Beth Moore and from that I know that I desperately want to be a Display of HIS splendor!  Less of me so there can be more of HIM!!!!

In what ways has your view of Godly beauty changed as a result of these Scriptures?I can’t say that my view of Godly beauty has changed.  It just reinforces what I already know.  Less of me  – more of Him.  Less of me- more of HIM!  LESS OF ME – MORE OF HIM!!! 

In closing, I often am reminded of this song when I think of being beautiful to God.  It is a song by Bethany Dillan and OH – this is the beauty I long to LONG for! 

I was so unique
Now I feel skin deep
Count on the makeup to cover it all
Crying myself to sleep
Because I cannot keep their attention
Thought I could be strong
But it’s killing me

Does someone hear my cry
I’m dying for new life

I want to be beautiful
And make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart
And be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful

Sometimes I wish I was someone other than me
Fighting to make the mirror happy
Trying to find whatever is missing
Won’t you help me back to glory

You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart
And I am amazed
I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love
And beautiful

This words speak the desire of my heart.  I want to be BEAUTIFUL to HIM.  I know that He already sees me as his princess, but I desperately want to act in a way that makes HIM stand in awe, that makes God proud of me.  Someone HE  can boast about to the angels in heaven.  I want to be so beautiful that others are drawn to the Spirit of HIM within me. 

OH, please help me my saviour to become this woman for you!  Make me beautiful and make your spirit shine through me.  Help me decrease so that you can increase.  Forgive me in the times when I allow my negative- self talk and life experiences to take precedence about what you say about me.  Change my heart, OH God – Give me one like yours!  Amen

Thanks Lisa for this great study!  Everyone go on over and check it out.  You can add your own thoughts there, too!

Blogger Blessings!

      This article is my submission to the blog challenge sponsored by Darlene Schacht,, the founder and editor of CWO Magazine, Uniting Women of Faith.

Challenge #5 asked that I write a post telling how God has blessed me through blogging.  There are many ways. What follows are some of them!

  I have always been a journal-er (is that a word?)!  As young as about 10 years old, I can remember having a “diary”.  I can’t say that I am the most eloquent writer or that I follow the rules of perfect grammar, but I enjoy writing down my feelings.  Over the years my “diary” has taken on lots of different forms and today comes in two different forms. One is a prayer journal that I keep as I pray each day and talk to God or as I study His word and pray through what I am learning.  The second is through this blog.  There aren’t usually a lot of people checking out my blog but I really enjoy writing on it.  God allows my soul some rest when I write these things down turning them over to Him.

Writing a blog myself is a blessing from the Lord in itself but there even bigger blessings from HIM out there in the blogosphere.  Allow me please to give you a little background so you can see what wonderful blessings the Lord has bestowed on me. My hubby is a United Methodist Pastor, and in the Methodist church, pastors are on an itinerant system where they are appointed to churches by the cabinet of the church.  Last June, hubby was appointed to a new church about an hour from where we had lived for the past 6 years.  Moving was hard on me to say the least.  The place where we were before was really like family.  That church saw my husband and I get married and saw each of our three daughters be born.  It was very difficult to move but feeling that God knows best, move we did. 

Over the course of about 5 months after we moved, I became increasingly anxious and depressed.  To be honest – I had no idea that I was either anxious or depressed.  I knew I didn’t have much of an appetite and that I felt tired and not well most of the time but I didn’t think I was depressed.  By December of 2006, this past Christmas I was a wreck and stayed that way, in a dark place, for a while.  I just need to be honest here and tell you that as a pastor’s wife it is very difficult to have close friends. When you move to a new place and are known as “the preacher’s wife” it gets complicated.  People are cordial and nice to me, but generally don’t see me as REAL friend material.  For one thing, most of the time people have an established group of friends already. Especially if they have lived in this place their entire lives. For another thing, I’m the “preachers wife” and therefore cannot possibly understand their broken humanness…..It’s hard for people to see “the preacher” and the “preacher’s wife” as normal people. And another thing that I think makes it even harder for a Methodist pastor’s family is that people know we won’t be here in this place for the rest of their lives or ours so it is hard to want to get really close to people who will eventually have to move on.  The hard part is that I am the kind of person who needs CLOSE friends.  The kind of friends that you can tell anything and everything to.  The kind of friends who you can be honest  with about your relationship with your husband — friends who you can tell the good – the bad AND the ugly to.  Because, let’s just be honest, NO one is perfect and we all have the good – the bad- and the ugly in our relationships.

I do believe that the Lord has been teaching me through all of this to be fully reliant ONLY on HIM! To see HIM as by best friend and the ONLY friend I really need.  And I am learning to do that .  Slowly – DAILY and sometimes HOURLY – I choose to trust HIM and rely only on HIM, and to allow HIS grace to be sufficient for me.  And although, this is a continual growing place for me, I do think that The Lord has begun to bless me with wonderful sister’s in Christ, who feed my soul, out there in the blogosphere.

 One day about 3 months ago I got an email from my aunt to her daughter, Lisa’s, blog.  She thought I might like to read it since Lisa and I are both preacher’s wives and have much in common.  It is funny to me looking back.  See, Lisa’s step-dad is my uncle and when Lisa first became a part of our family, she was in high school and I was a “lowly” middle school-er…..therefore, by the laws of teenagers everywhere, we weren’t allowed to be friends.  I was closer to her younger sister who was only a year older than me and thereby still in middle school herself.  So, Lisa and I weren’t close and really only saw one another once in a while and after she got married I didn’t see her again for years! Literally. years. I have seen her since she and her hubby became a ministry family themselves once in a while but never long enough to really have deep conversation. Not to mention the fact that Lisa is the mother of 4 and I have 3 little ones – so deep conversation at family gatherings is – to say the least – IMPOSSIBLE.  Anyway, I digress.  Back to what I was saying.  Lisa’s mom sent me a link to Lisa’s blog. I read it, laughed so hard I thought I would cry and was hooked.  Lisa, over at The Preacher’s Wife is a blessing from God.  She teaches my soul and she makes me laugh. What a blessing!

From Lisa’s blog, I found CWO and Darlene Schacht. Darlene is the editor of CWO and she has her own personal blog.  The magazine and Darlene personally encourage me in my daily walk with HIM.  Darlene also started Jehovah Java Cafe’ and this group of ladies bless my socks off each morning as I read their posts.

Also from Lisa’s blog, I found Tracey over at Show Me State of Mind.  She is also a fellow “preacher’s wife”.  She is SO encouraging to me and is always the first sister to offer prayers when I’m in need.

From the Jehovah Java Cafe, I found Cindy at One Day More and Kim over at Lifesong. God always allows these ladies to have words of wisdom to speak to my heart!

From the CWO blogroll, I found In The Midst of It, Boo Mama and Big Mama.  I read this ladies blogs every day and when I am having a challenging day (which as a sahm of 3 little girls – ages 5, 3, 2 – and care giver for a 6 month old happens to be MOST everyday) they make me laugh and lighten my mood considerably.

How has God blessed me through blogging you ask.  I’d say in more ways than I can count!  The sister’s listed above are some of them. Most of these ladies don’t even know me – and may never know what a blessing they are to me. For the few of you who do read this, I hope you hear me when I say God us using you in a BIG way to bless my life and I am ever so thankful to HIM for allowing me to find these folks out there in the blogosphere! 

If you have made it this far into this long post, I ever so humbly THANK YOU for reading it!  God bless each of you this day!

Mindy