The Chocolate Dilemma: A Confession

The first step to overcoming any sort of addiction is confession, right? Well, here's mine. I am addicted to chocolate. I know I know, you're thinking "well duh...you're female..welcome to the club". Most of the time I don't think it's a concern but today I really felt the internal struggle within me. It all started because someone gave me a bag of Hershey's Kisses for Christmas...which I recently found.....and brought into work....and just about ate the entire bag by myself. Here's my justification: they're so tiny, they melt in your mouth, you can eat many of them without feeling full, I just started taking multi-vitamins so a little chocolate here and there won't hurt. But then there's this other little voice inside of me saying "Put the chocolate down Krystal, and eat some carrot sticks instead! Carrots are healthier, they're good w/dip, you'll feel better about yourself afterward.....just put the chocolate down."

I'm reminded of a verse at times like these...

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." - Romans 7

Paul knew the feeling. Is there any  hope for me? 

Compartmentalization

Is that a word? It is now.

Something to think about fellow brothers and sisters in Christ: do you compartmentalize your life? Separating church and ministry from the rest of your life? "This part of my day is work, this part is family time, Sunday is church, Tuesday night is ministry, and the rest of the time I do whatever the heck I feel like doing" etc....you get the idea. Whether we intend to or not, it's something we all do. May I exhort you (and myself) to change your perspective a little? In the Bible, man's relationship with God affected all aspects of one's life. God was never separate from or absent from even the most mundane of daily activities. Being a Christian is not PART of who you are. It's not one area of your life, it IS your life. You are a new creation! Forgiven and redeemed! Sanctified and made holy! This should greatly affect your work, family, free time, chores, fellowship, ministry, etc.It should change your attitude and your behavior in each of these areas of your life.

Speaking of ministry...do you realize that if you're married and/or have children, that your first and most important ministry is family? "Ministry", doesn't have to be an organized program w/in your local church, Though they are wonderful to be involved in, they should never cause you to neglect your marriage or your family. I mean think about the importance of family. First, marriage---the best earthly reflection of the intimate relationship between Christ and the Church. It's a gift created by God, for God, to reflect God and bring Him glory. And He creates it right at the very beginning of time! Kind of important, don't you think? Secondly, we were told to "be fruitful and multiply", training up the next generation to live for the Glory of God, and teach them to train THEIR children...and so the cycle continues. Make babies. And train them well. If you ask me, and Martin Luther (see Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, near the end of the book), the family is one of the most important ministries there is.

Let me be clear: I am NOT against organized church programs or ministries. I am FOR them. HOWEVER, you can be involved in every possible church ministry there is and think you're glorifying God, but if your spouse and/or children never get any of your time or attention, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say God is not pleased, nor glorified. Programs don't change people anyway...relationships do. And you don't necessarily need to be part of a program in order to have relationships and be involved in the lives of others. That's all I'm saying.

In conclusion, I love my husband. And we'd both love to have a family someday...with lots of babies. It is a desire of ours and we need to do what's necessary to prepare and give the appropriate amount of time & attention to each other, and preparing our home for the ministry God has laid on our hearts.

2011.

Welcome to 2011! I'm not surprised how quickly 2010 went by...nor am I surprised how quickly Christmas break went by. It happens every year. And here we are, back to work, back to the daily grind. But I'm not upset about that. The break was fabulous and refreshing, very productive. And by productive I mean about 1-2 days of cleaning, 5-6 days just relaxing and being lazy. It was wonderful.

Here are some highlights of the Christmas break:

-spending time w/family (mine and his), though we wish we could've spent more time w/his family since we don't see them very often, but our visit was cut short due to the snow that was on its way to Philly. We had to go home 2 days earlier :(

-cleaning my bathroom. It wasn't a "highlight" WHILE I was cleaning it. The result was the highlight. Clean floor, clean shower, clean tub, clean vanity. I like clean things. 

-receiving 3 of Alton Brown's cookbooks. Stay tuned for a "Julie & Julia" style food blog when I take on ALL the recipes in AB's baking cookbook. Pictures will be included.

-receiving a food dehydrator! What a wonderful invention. Last night we dehydrated some fruit: bananas, mango and pineapples. So delicious and healthy and glorious in every possible way. Now when we make beef jerky I don't know if I can give it that exact same description...just "delicious and glorious" :)

-catching up on all the episodes of Psych I've missed. I've now seen every episode for 4 seasons, thanks to Netflix. Season 5 needs to come out soon. I'm going through Psych-withdrawal.

-reading again. Like, REALLY reading... actual books...on a regular basis. The husband and I have been reading through a book called "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ" (Piper). I highly recommend it. Though if I were to re-title the book, I'd call it "The Supremacy of Christ and Sex". It's a very Christ-centered look at what sex is and what it was created for; how it was originally intended by its Creator...and of course, how the world has twisted and corrupted it. Very good read. In addition, we've also started to each read something else for fun. I'm starting to read "The Hobbit", and then the other 3 LOTR books are waiting for me when I finish that. I love reading. I've missed reading. I'm so thankful I'm reading again.

-and of course....sleeping in. That's always a highlight.

*For a completely random, but hopefully helpful and informative thought on cooking: here's a good tip my husband taught me (that I had to learn the hard way): never ever use salt grinders during the cooking process. Never, I say! It's too difficult to know just exactly how much you're using, mostly because you can't really see it all coming out of the grinder and it immediately dissolves once it touches the hot foods. Sprinkle salt into the palm of your hand, then add gradually (tasting a little bit as you go so you know when to stop). And when it comes to salt in general, less IS more. Use the grinder for off the stove-top, on your individual plate of food if you desire to add more. How did I learn the hard way, you ask?: by completely ruining a perfectly good batch of spinach! :( It was cooking in the pan w/garlic and olive oil, and lots of pepper (which you can NEVER have enough of in my opinion...I <3 pepper), and then I proceeded to grind in the salt...and then a little more salt cause it looked like I had SO much spinach to cover...until of course it cooked down to nothing...in like 3 seconds. Stupid spinach. I knew that would happen, but it took me by surprise how quickly it would happen. Anyway....long story short: it was way too salty. WAY too salty. I was sad. But I learned my lesson and you better believe I will never cook salty spinach again. Ever.

Love,
Mrs. Griffiths