Impact by Transparency :: Mentoring Moments

   Making an impact on the next generation sounds difficult, maybe even risky for those of us who don't have kids of our own. You might wonder, what do I have to offer that a kid who's 11 years younger than me might learn from or would someone that young really enjoy hanging out and living life with me? Sure, it might take some extra creativity on your part to look for extra fun things to do, but in the end just living life in a real way with those who are younger is enjoyable for both you and them. It gives them a chance to see how a person functions in the world, with a family, and as an individual. This is especially the case if your mentoring an at risk youth who maybe has never seen or known a functioning family, someone who can hold down a job, or even graduated high school.


  As a young single person, finding worthwhile things to invest in outside of yourself can always be a stretching...let's face it, most of our life people (parents, teachers, pastors, friends) are usually focused on investing in us with sometimes little to no return on our part. In preparation for your future, for most of us that means marriage, start the process now of learning self sacrifice.  Use your single years to advance the gospel in the lives of those around you.

   This is a path I have chosen, living a transparent life for the glory of God and the proclamation of His gospel. About a year ago I joined Ignite Youth Mentoring, a faith based organization who's purpose is "...providing youth in the Tri-Cities adult role models of Christian Character." I was matched with a sweet, fun, and vibrant 8th grade girl who has opened my eyes a whole new world. We've been able to share some special times together...everything from swimming lessons to bike rides, a trip to Spokane to painting nails together. It's forced me to get outside my perfect box of middle class, college graduate, and having no needs to see that others right in my back yard are living a life much different than mine. Though she and I may not always be the most talkative...I always come away wondering what more can I do to steer her in a good direction in life.

   Sure, there's been times when it's been difficult. I'm not going to lie, I've doubted whether or not I'm making an impact. I've wondered if maybe she's not enjoying our times together. I've wondered if there's more I should be saying about the Gospel, abstinence, drugs, and friends. Though I probably have room to grow in ALL these areas, realizing that God is going to use any measure of my time spent with her to it's fullest is where I have set my camp up at. Remembering it's not my work (see the self focus there??), but rather it's Christ. CHRIST will use my smallness for His GREATNESS...no matter the road taken. Now, does this give me an excuse to slack off? By no means... rather it encourages me to do more so that my smallness will grow larger resulting in His greatness being shown even greater. 

<3<3Finding humor in our time together<3<3

   Transparency will become your best friend. Being willing to share about your life, your failures and successes, your joys and sorrows will take you far in gaining trust in those you live life with. Likewise, with mentoring, even young people can sense when your being real with them. My goal as become to be an impact on the people in my life by being transparent. Not being ashamed of who I am, how God has made me, and that I am here on this earth for one purpose which is to glorify Christ.






~::~Solus Christus~::~

Crock Pot Paleo Pepperoncini Beef

  This has become my new favorite meal option, and it's TOTALLY paleo! I guarantee your mouth will be watering when you smell this cooking. It has a bit of a spice to it, but not overpowering at all (and I don't like spicy).

   I pared my beef with a large salad. Grilled asparagus, fresh tomato, and some apple with it would be delicious as well! Enjoy!

Crock Pot Paleo Pepperoncini Beef

1 medium/large beef roast
2-3 TBS. Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 32oz. jar pepperoncinis (use all of it's liquid as well)

  1) Brown roast in skillet with the olive oil. Cover roast with pepper and salt.
  2) Place Roast in crock pot. Place minched garlic on roast and spread on top.
  3) De-seed pepperoncinis, chop and place in crock pot with roast. Pour liquid from pepperoncinis into crock pot.
  4) Cook on low for 8-10 hours 

My.Favorite.Things.From.This.Past.Year

 This continues to be one of my most favorite pictures I have ever taken. Captured in Egypt.

 Latte's are a new favorite this year....no sugar added!

I love God's grace!

 The Lord has shown me GREAT mercy this last year. I am so thankful He will never fail me even in my stupidity.

<3 Love Chevron Stripes <3

<-- Working out every day with a new sweet sista!


  My new car...I love it sooo much. God was faithful in providing it. -->

I'm SUPER excited to be 24...even numbered birthdays are my FAVORITE!

 

~Fudgy Bites~

If your looking for something to sooth your chocolate sweet tooth, but are trying to stay away from processed sugars, wheat, eggs, and anything non-paleo....this recipe is for you! My family has made this multiple times and we LOVE them!

Fudgy Bites

1/2 cup medjool dates, pits removed
1 cup walnuts
3 tablespoons cacao powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp sea salt

1) place dates, walnuts, cacao power, vanilla and salt in food processor
2) pulse on high speed until smooth
3) Remove mixture from food processor and roll into little balls
4) Serve!

* if extra liquid is needed to make balls stick, dribble water and pulse mixture until balls form.

Something {Old} and Something {New}

   Change....a word that can be both frightening and exciting at the same time. This word encapsulates my life this week. Many changes are taking place in my life, and though I'm not a person who deals well with change and the unknowns, and let me tell you, this week definitely has it's unknowns, I have also been looking forward to the changes happening and am excited to share with you what the Lord has been doing. Change is something I have been praying about since October.God finally moved in a visible way this last week, and I am overjoyed!

    Change...my buzz word for the week. One of the biggest changes that I am happy to announce is the change of my job. I've not shared much, but for the last 6-7 months my current job, tutoring higher level disabled students and doing brain stimulating exercises with those who have lower cognitive ability, has taken a toll on me emotionally and physically. One of my students in particular who I was working with on behavior related issues was stretching me farther in learning to trust the Lord with my safety than I have ever needed to before. Some days I was never sure if walking away from this specific job would be done so on my own two feet or wheeled out on a gurney. I praise the Lord for His continued protection and shielding hand. Though I saw and experienced a lot, I also grew in my knowledge of the crippling effects mental disabilities can have not only on the person if affects, but also on the family members. With as stressful as this job was, I began praying that the Lord would open another job opportunity up for me, one in which I would be placed in a safer environment and working with others around me. Just last week I was called by the school district I work for offering me another position, and I was excited to accept! Praise God! My new job will be full time (30 hrs a week) with everything that comes with a full time position and it will also allow me to continue my own tutoring in the afternoons. I will be working one-on-one with a 4th grade non-verbal autistic child, and though I know this job wont be without its difficulties, God will be there beside me every step of the way for He has provided this new opportunity.

 
 Change...sometime we all go through during our life, most likely multiple times. This week I turn 24. For some reason I feel like I should be turning 25, BUT that's just me getting ahead of myself like usual. I am excited for this new year of my life...excited to see what God is going to do...excited for the changes I know will happen....excited for my trip to Europe (more on that later)...overall, excited for LIFE!

   Change...the week right before Spring break. Probably one of the first times I'm not sure of what I'll be doing other than sleeping in, reading, working out and drinking a cup of java! I am thoroughly excited for my spring break!

   Change...I'm desiring to become a person not ashamed of sharing the gospel and being a light to whomever I meet. I want to share about the saving power of Christ and why He is so precious to me.

   Change...This week is Resurrection week (Easter) and probably for the first time in my life, I am noticing all the vibrant changes that happen in nature. The bright hues of yellow, pink, and greens. Spring and Resurrection Sunday no longer signify bunnies and candy but a risen Lord and beautiful world. Maybe I'm slow in figuring this stuff out!


   Take time with me this week to praise the Lord for the changes in your life, both the good and the bad, for isn't He over all things? Nothing is above the help of God and nothing happens out of God's plan!

  ~Blessings~
 

 

Moistest Paleo Coconut Flour Cookies Ever

    Usually when I bake with coconut* flour it's in small amounts mixed with a greater amount of almond flour. This time though, in hopes of making a higher fiber cookie, I made chocolate chip cookies with coconut flour mixed with a smaller amount of almond flour and a tad bit of my most favorite GF flour ever, Bavarian Mills. If I would have had enough almond flour, I would have used just coconut and almond combined, but I didn't. Thus the reason for using my GF mixture instead. Also, instead of 1 banana like the recipe called for, I put in 1 3/4 banana....definitely helps with the **moisture content.


  * Coconut flour soaks up liquid like a sponge which is why it's a bit harder to bake with.

   ** When cooking with gluten free flours or even nut flours, I've found that the more moisture you add, the moister the cookie or baked product. This is especially so with coconut flour. 

Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup coconut flour (1/8 cup more if needed)

1/4 cup almond flour

(I used about an 1/8 cup almond and an 1/8 GF flour)

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 mashed banana

 3 TBS honey

 1/2 TBS coconut oil

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup rice milk (more if needed)

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients in separate bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and combine. Dough should be very wet, this is good, coconut flour soaks up a lof of moisture! Mix in chocolate chips. Form 2 TBS. of dough into ball and place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet - flatten slightly with back of spoon. Bake 18-25 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately transfer to cooling rack.

 

//Sin: the Dictator of Our Lives// Hope: Through God//

As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

there is no one who understands,

no one who seeks God.

All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.”

**Romans 3:10-12**




 ~~~**~~~

   Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Chavez, Pol Pot...all men who are viewed as dictators of their countries; men who ruled with iron thumbs, not looking out for the best interest of their fellow country men. Many of these men's time in leadership are marked by the drastic extermination of people groups or innocent civilians. Ruled by greed, wealth, status, and power. Driven by the sin in their lives. 

   Like these morally corrupt rulers,we to would have the same heart and motives if not for Christ. For the unregenerate, God gives common grace. "The Bible consistently teaches what theologians have come to call “common grace,” a non-saving grace that is at work in the broader reaches of human cultural interaction. This gift of God’s grace to humanity in general demonstrates a desire on God’s part to bestow certain blessings on all human beings, believer and non-believer alike." (Tim Keller, What is Common Grace PDF) For those who have been called by name to be His, God shows us our corrupt and selfish hearts, brings us to repentance, covers us with His righteousness and places within us a heart that desires to live a moral life not for morality's sake but in order to Glorify Him, magnify His name, spread His gospel and one day live eternally in Heaven with Him.

"The doctrine of common grace helps us to acknowledge God’s goodness in all of creation and enables us to pursue mission with love in a fallen world." ~ Tim Keller

   Meditating on Romans 3:10-12 today, my life before Christ, I became so very thankful for God choosing to place me in a home that taught me His truths and raised me with a Christian world view. Am I saying that those who aren't raised in a Christian home aren't as privileged? By no means! Both have been equally shown the mercy of God in a fallen world, both have been changed in radical way. No matter whether if God called you out of a life of drugs, abuse, prostitution, gang life,  a non-religious morally good life or the opposite, a conservative, christian home where His gospel was taught and shown through example by your parents...God has called you out of darkness. It was Him who placed you in whatever life situation you grew up in; neither are far from His grasp of control or closer to it based on outward appearance. 

   As Romans 3:10-12 reminds us, no one, not the druggy or the innocent church goer are free from sin. It is the dictator of everyone's life, killing all good that we could produce on our own and hardening us to God's work. Apart from Christ, all are equally doomed to a terrible ending, Hell. My friend, do not take this lightly, Hell is a real place that is for all those who do not claim Christ as their savior and Lord. 

   But God....God shows mercy and forgiveness to the sin in our lives. He alone is able to wipe out the dictator, sin, that had taken residency in our hearts and sets up a new kingdom...one filled with hope, peace, security, and a desire to give Him unashamed glory for what He has done in our life.

  "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:4-10)

~Grace and Peace~

  

//Declared Right Before God//

“I wish I could say that everything I do is for God’s glory but I can’t. And neither can you. What I can say is Jesus’ blood covers all my efforts to glorify myself.”

— Tullian Tchividjian 

 

“I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.”
― R.C. Sproul, Saved from What? 

//Paleo// Cherry Walnut Almond Flour Cookies

   Having extra time on my hands this week, I decided to pull out some new paleo recipes and try experimenting. The cookies I am going to share with you today are a unique cross between a cookie and a biscuit in texture. I over baked mine just a tad, but they still came out delicious. Also, I made quite a few substitutions as well as decreased the amount of sweetener I used in them (it called for white sugar, BOO, and as that's all we had on hand, I used it. Ergo the reason for decreasing the amount.) As far as substitutions go, because I didn't have any dried cherries on hand, I rehydrated some dehydrated coconut instead and used that as well as  I used almond extract instead of vanilla extract (made them soooo yummy and nutty flavored). I would definitely make them again....just hopefully next time I have some kind of dried fruit (cherry, apricot, raisin) to put in them.

Recipe

1 1/2 cups almond flour

1/4 cup butter softened

1/4 cup sugar (for a less sweet cookie, only fill the quarter cup measurer 3/4 of the way full. Also, a good sugar substitute would be coconut sugar)

1 egg

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup shredded coconut(rehydrated) or dried fruit of choice

1/3 cup chopped walnuts 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Spoon onto greased cookie sheet making medium sized balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

~Blessings~

    Laura

Sovereignty of God {{Exposed}}

Some weeks we see the need for God's sovereignty more than others. We might catch ourselves joyfully living life one day with little thought to God's divine ordination of circumstances while the next day, in the difficult moments, we are constantly reminding ourselves that God has a plan and a purpose for everything; nothing is untouched by the sovereign will of God. We must realize that, in both the good and the bad, God's sovereignty never changes and isn't dependent on whether or not a thought crosses our mind concerning our dependency on Him.

“What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.”
― John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God 

I am thankful that God saved me. I am thankful that out of the billions of people in the world, He called me His own and sealed me a place with Him forever. I am thankful that every moment of my life has been pre-planned. I am thankful that God is not dependent upon my frail humanity for anything. I am thankful that God is king. I am thankful that He holds the whole world within the palm of His hand. 

"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in the scales?"

- Isaiah 40:12

Because God's sovereignty touches every aspect of our lives, this means we are free to live a fear free life."Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” - Deuteronomy 31:6. God's plan for your life can not me thwarted. He will not withhold any perfect thing from you that He has already planned to put in your path, nor will any difficulty you face be unmanageable for His mighty power. ALL things work according to His perfect plan. 

"But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" Romans 9:20

Who are we to decide when and if we God can be in control of our life? Let me guarantee this, even in the moments when you think you have gained the upper hand, God is still God and is greater and mightier than ever. We are but dust, miniscule and powerless in comparison to Him. Find rest in the knowledge that you aren't in control of your life...your main objective should be to live a life that Glorifies the Lord and leave all the rest to Him. 

“If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”
― R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God

e strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6) - See more at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2008/09/How-to-Face-Fear-10-Bible-Verses-To-Inspire-Courage.aspx?p=5#sthash.sopygeFa.dpuf

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) - See more at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2008/09/How-to-Face-Fear-10-Bible-Verses-To-Inspire-Courage.aspx?p=2#sthash.1iSugjfP.dpuf

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) - See more at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2008/09/How-to-Face-Fear-10-Bible-Verses-To-Inspire-Courage.aspx?p=2#sthash.1iSugjfP.dpuf