The Mom Crowd

This post was originally published on Dec. 21, 2008, but I think this is a wonderful reminder for this year too! Today is the first day of December and this month is going to fly by FAST! Let’s remember to enjoy it! Say no when we need to. Get off the computer when we need to. Get on the carpet with our children. Laugh. Eat. Enjoy. Count our blessings!

Original post:

The Christmas cards sitting on my mantle are bellowing at me in their cursive gold fonts to have a joyful and peace filled holiday season.  I think the cards are mocking me as I run about town shopping and stressing about cookies and wrapping presents.  I do desire to have joy and peace over the next two weeks and I am determined to guard my joy and peace.

Joy stealers come with many different faces.

Unmet expectations certainly steal your peace when you are disappointed and upset. Anger is a form of unmet expectations. So next time you are angry ask yourself which expectation you had wasn’t met. Then you have the choice to look at a situation logically or choose to just get over it. My spiritual mom would ask me when I was upset “What is the worst thing that can happen?” Once you worked out a situation backwards, you realize that it is just money, stuff, a bummer, or a disappointment. Then you come out thankful that you are alive and everything is relatively okay.

Unresolved conflict steals your joy when you are fighting with a your spouse, family member or a friend. Some conflicts can be resolved quickly. While others have been the elephant in the family living for years. My parents have unresolved conflict between themselves as long as I have been alive, but I decide not to take sides and not let their conflict between each other bug me. They are both wrong and my only concern is their relationship between them and me. Even when they complain about the other to me, I have to let their comments roll off my back. Sometimes putting on a hard shell and letting stupid comments roll off my back is my way of guarding my peace and joy.

There are joy stealers on the road! They steal parking spaces, go too slow, block the parking lot by waiting ten minutes for someone to load up their car and start it just so they can walk 20 steps closer to the door. One joy stealer may even be in the driver’s seat of the car! Your husband may be driving like a maniac or not going the route you would have gone. Just close your eyes and remember you will get there eventually.

Remember the big picture and keep your peace. What does Christmas mean to you? Is it spending quality time with your family? Is it remembering the Savior coming to earth so we can spend eternity in heaven? Is it being generous to others or a good time off from work? Whatever reason you celebrate Christmas, remember the big picture when something goes wrong and ask yourself if the big picture is still being accomplished. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

As you have joy and peace the rest of your family will feel it too. Don’t keep that joy and peace to yourself let it radiate from you wherever you go!

How do you plan to guard your peace and joy? Are you having a rough holiday season or this one being pleasant to you?

“Can anything separate us from Christ’s love?  Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?  (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)  No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.  And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love.  Death can’t, and life can’t.  The angels can’t, and the demons can’t.  Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away.  Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8: 35-39 (NLT)

We spent some time in the above passage in my Sunday school class yesterday, kicking of a 3-week series on the purpose of Christmas.  I asked each person to spend some time reflecting on the amazing words above, and to share a phrase that stuck with them personally.  The responses were varied and beautiful, and I also shared my own: the repeated use of the word “separate”.

I thought about how that word describes our relationship with God before Jesus enters into it.  Our sin separates us from a perfect, holy God, and only Jesus can bridge that gap.  In taking our sin upon Himself and nailing it to the Cross, Jesus made a way for us to be in relationship with God forever.  Hallelujah for Christmas, the birth of our Savior!

So seeing the word “separate” in the passage from Romans has all new meaning, because of the words that precede it:  “nothing can”!  We are stuck to God like glue.  In the words of a guy in my Sunday school class, God is like this loving, ever-present bodyguard.  That is certainly a nice picture to have in mind when facing the trials of another day – and a great reason to begin celebrating Advent.

I like to think of God not just as a bodyguard, but a gentle giant, one who is completely interested in everything I think and do.  Donald Miller describes it like this (in his excellent, must-read book, Blue Like Jazz):

“Jesus didn’t just love me out of principle; He didn’t just love me because it was the right thing to do.  Rather, there was something inside me that caused Him to love me.  I think I realized that if I walked up to His campfire, He would ask me to sit down, and He would ask me my story.  He would take the time to listen to my ramblings or my anger until I could calm down, and then He would look me directly in the eye, and He would speak to me; He would tell me the truth, and I would sense in His voice and in the lines on His face that He liked me.”

It is this same Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas.  May your Advent season be shaped and colored by the thought that He is your friend, and His love never fails.  Have a great week, Mom Crowd!

The holidays are a time of excitement and family.  Growing up, we are shuffled to this relatives house or that one’s house to see family and eat wonderful meals prepared with love.  As we mature and start our own families, it’s only natural that we would want to start our own traditions.  This year, my family opted to have a small Thanksgiving at home with just us and my Mom.  Now, we can’t say that this will be our annual tradition, but it’s nice to break from the mold once in a while and do something a little different. 

There are certain things to think about before trecking out on your own with holiday traditions:

How will everyone else take it?  It’s always important to consider how other family feels about you ducking out of the normal traditions and starting your own, especially if that means not participating in the usual festivities. 

What kinds of things do you want to do?  When merging two families (yours and your husbands) there will obviously be two or more ideas of how to do things.  Sit down and discuss how you both would like your family to celebrate the holidays, what traditions are especially important to both of you and what things you don’t want to do. 

How can you get things started?  When starting new traditions, it’s not important that you do everything the first holiday.  Don’t feel obliged to get it perfect from the get-go.  Remember that your family has most likely been doing the same thing for years and that they started out slowly too. 

I think it’s a great idea to start your own traditions and have fun doing it.  Let your kids help out with decorations and cooking/baking.  Let them be a part of incorporating the new ideas and activities so that they feel they connected to the holidays and are not just spectators. 

Have you ventured out on your own and started your own holiday traditions?  What was the most difficult part for you?  How did you get started?

Photo Courtesy of Evan S. Photography

We don’t usually talk about recipes here on The Mom Crowd, but how can you NOT when its Thanksgiving? I LOVE Thanksgiving food. I always look forward to eating several Thanksgiving meals during this season. I can’t wait for the leftover stuffing, turkey and gravy that is going to fill my fridge at the end of this week.

My family is spending the night at my in-laws house the night before Thanksgiving this year. We will be cooking the night before and getting up early to cook some more. Each family member is responsible for different parts of the meal. I am always in charge of green beans. Last year I added creamed corn and this year I will also be baking a ham. My mother-in-law and brother-in-law usually handle the turkey.

Here are the recipes that I will be using this week. Please link up your favorite thanksgiving food recipes at the bottom in Mr. Linky.

Fresh Green Beans with Bacon

I made up this recipe based on how I remember my my mom making them. Fresh green beans are so easy to make and so good! You can even make these the day before. If you make the day before, store them in their boiling juice to preserve the bacon flavor.

2 pounds of green beans (or more)
4 to 5 strips of bacon (this can be Maple bacon, Peppered Bacon, or regular bacon. I have used all different kinds)
Water
pinch of Salt and Pepper

1. Snap the green beans by snapping off the ends, then breaking the rest of the bean into bite size pieces.
2. Rinse the snapped beans
3. Cut the bacon into 1.5 inch pieces.
4. Put the beans, bacon, salt, and pepper in a pot and fill with water.
5. Boil the beans for about 30 minutes. Pull one bean out to taste to see if it is cooked through enough for you. Be careful not to boil too long or they might get mushy.

Links to other recipes I use:

Cream Corn - I LOVE this Cream Corn recipe on Allrecipes.com. I have made this one several times and it is so good and easy to prepare.

Honey Glazed Ham – I don’t usually eat ham, but for some reason I was craving one this year. I didn’t want to spend the money on a Honey Baked Ham and the pre-done ones at the grocery store were too expensive. I found a regular ham at the grocery store on sale for $.99 a pound! So I bought a big one for $7 to practice with. I made this Honey Glazed recipe and it was delicious! The recipe says to use the broiler at the end for a few minutes. My ham burned on the very top when I used the broiler, but I cut off those burnt bits.

I then used the ham bone and made this Crock Pot Ham Bone and Beans recipe. We licked our bowls clean after this dinner!

I really enjoy discovering new recipes that have already been test driven. Please use Mr. Linky below to post any recipes that you love to make for Thanksgiving!

This week is Thanksgiving. We know that it is polite and good to be thankful. We strive to teach our kids our thankfulness. But why should we be thankful? What if we weren’t thankful and just took everything for granted?  We can see the importance of thankfulness in Romans 1: 20 – 25:

20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

In these verses we get a clue as to how the degradation of mankind began – with ungratefulness. Because we have not glorified God or gave thanks to Him He has allowed our selfish desires to take over. As a result our world is full of perversion and fake idols. The tipping point is ingratitude.

Let us be careful in our own lives and don’t forget to be thankful. Thankful not just for His mercies and His creation, but for EVERYTHING. For everything good is created by Him (1 Cor. 8:6).

What things are you thankful for this week? We ask this of our children in Sunday school and maybe we’ll write a blog post or update our Facebook status with our list of gratitudes, but do we really answer this out loud as adults? Write what you are thankful for in a journal this week, in the comments of this post, or on your own website! There is plenty to which we should be grateful!