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Month: September 2017
Bulletproof Coffee
Fall is slowly making her debut here in Raleigh, and I am starting to get excited about warm drinks and coziness. The mornings have been much cooler, and it has me pulling out my blender to whip up some magical “bulletproof coffee.”
If you are hesitant to add fat and calories to your beverages, then back away slowly. But if you love creamy delicious drinks and having lots of energy and happy feels, then keep reading and make this stuff stat!
Bulletproof Coffee (serves 1)
-8 ounces hot coffee
-1 tablespoon butter
-1 tablespoon coconut oil
-1/4 cup coconut milk (I use the canned full-fat kind, usually Goya or Trader Joe’s brand)
-honey to taste
Buzz this up in the blender for a few seconds, pour into your favorite mug (this step is crucial), and enjoy.
Happy (almost) fall!
Paying Attention
It feels like I am on this constant quest to slow down, pay attention, and be more present in my life. I have read so many wonderful books on this subject, and right now I am reading The Attentive Life by Leighton Ford. I figured we might all need a little midweek reminder of the importance of paying attention (or at least trying to!). Ford says this:
“Hurry is the great enemy of the life of the spirit… I suppose that most of us live more like tourists rushing to keep up with an itinerary than pilgrims drinking in the lands we are passing through.”
“Attentiveness is much more than our attempt to see and understand; it is a species of faith, an open and receptive trust that God has much to reveal to us when we pay attention.”
Loving Lately [#14- Trader Joe’s Edition]
It’s been such a weird couple weeks with all of this crazy weather, and it’s strange to me that I’m going about life as usual while so many others have had their lives completely turned upside down. Here is a link to sustainable relief funds if you are interested.
In the meantime, I am going to lighten things up a bit here on the blog by chitchatting about some recent Trader Joe’s finds:
1. Salted almond butter. This little jar of happiness is $6.99, which is one of the best prices I’ve found. I love to eat it on a sandwich, on a spoon, or- my personal favorite- stuffed into a medjool date.
2. Coconut milk. I don’t know much, but I know that putting this coconut milk in your smoothie will make you cry tears of joy. It makes smoothies next-level delicious! Sometimes I’ll pour the milk into ice cube trays and keep them in the freezer so I always have a cube or two when I need it. I also use the coconut milk a lot in curries, or as coffee creamer.
3. Grass fed beef burgers. Not much to say about these other than that they are burgers and I love them. Bun + grilled burger + pickles + ketchup/mustard is the besttt dinner paired with some salad and sweet potato fries. I’m not yet willing to admit that summer/grilling season is coming to an end!
4. Coconut cream yogurt. I am totally down for anything coconut flavored, and this was no exception. It was creamy, sweet, perfectly coconutty, and might just be my new favorite yogurt.
5. Pink lady apple kombucha. I’m not going to lie, at first I didn’t love the taste of this. As I sipped on it throughout the day, though, it started to grow on me (you better believe I’m not letting a $3 drink go to waste!). I ended up really enjoying it, and I recently bought a kit to brew my own… Stay tuned!
Praying for everyone’s safety this week! Praying also that we would cling to Christ’s promise that He will “never leave us nor forsake us,” and that He will be with us in the troubles and uncertainties of life.
Self-Righteous
Here is something I love about Jesus: He is not self-righteous.
If you’ve been around church for any length of time, then these verses will likely be familiar to you:
“Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to His disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'” -Luke 5:29-32
I’m going to be honest- lately I have felt sad and heartbroken over attitudes and actions within the church that I perceive to be self-righteous. But then I read this and remember that while we humans may be prone to pride and self-righteousness, Jesus never is. There is absolutely no darkness in Him at all (1 John 1:5). While I love the church and intend to belong to a community of believers until the day I die, I have to remind myself that it is Jesus I’m following, not the institution of the church.
I need to pause here and point out that I, too, am susceptible to self-righteousness. My sinful heart is all too prone to create an “us” and “them” mentality, smugly satisfied when I find myself on what I perceive to be the higher moral ground. It makes me sick to admit that because I never ever want that to be true of me, but that is human nature and I know that I am no exception.
I want to be transformed into the character and likeness of Jesus, not of our culture. I want to look more like the One who gladly ate with sinners and called us into His Kingdom and loved us to the point of sacrificing His own life. There is absolutely no room for self-righteousness or moral superiority in a heart that mirrors Christ’s.
While I continue to wrestle with prevailing attitudes in Christian culture and in my own heart, I never want to forget who it is that I’m truly following. Because, “you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6,8)
