52 Dozen. Week 10. "What about him??"

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52 Dozen. Week 10.

I can’t believe I am already 1/5 of the way through this year of baking cookies each week. My goal was to bake 52 dozen and technically I have baked 18 dozen already because each batch was larger than a dozen and several weeks were for multiple people or groups so the batch had to be larger.

This week is no exception! I baked 4-dozen cookies this week in 2 batches and therefore using 2 recipes. I pledged to bake cookies as a form of recognizing the many people God put in my life and to intentionally engage with them and honestly I’m already surprised by some of the folks that I’ve delivered cookies to.

Now on to the juicy details…

My husband and I don’t normally go to small group with church just because of the timing. Wednesday night group starts at our son’s bedtime and Sunday afternoon group lands at the same time I have groups come to volunteer for work. I usually have a group 2-3 times each month at this time which only leaves 1-2 weeks each month that we can go. Last week we were free and able so we went. I had wanted to connect deeper with people at church and knew small groups were the way to do it so I was so relieved to be there.

Our discussion flourished around John 21, the same topic as the sermon that morning. As miraculous as the beginning of the chapter is: Jesus being resurrected and speaking directions to several disciples AND His direction being the key feature of this successful bounty of fish, that’s not the part of the story that called out to me that day. It was the end of the chapter, verses 18-25.

¹⁸ Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”²⁰ Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) ²¹ When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” ²² Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” ²³ Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” ²⁴ This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. ²⁵ Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

Many would read over this chapter and think, “seriously? This stood out to you more than the first part of the chapter??” Well, yes.

Our pastor elaborated and helped set the scene, as he always does so well, and it helped me see myself more as Peter than ever before. Jesus is walking along with Peter (and John is walking behind them, eavesdropping) and Jesus tells Peter that he will die, by way of crucifixion, because of his faith in Jesus. Peter says what everyone else is thinking when God lets them in on a piece of their faith journey that doesn’t sound very appealing, “Lord, what about him??” pointing to someone else. I love Jesus’ answer because it is the answer to each of us whenever we ask this question. “You must follow me.”

Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what God is doing with that person over there, your friend, your co-worker, your college roommate, your neighbor, or even your momma, “YOU MUST FOLLOW ME.”

In our early years of marriage my husband and I had plans. I had just graduated college the semester before we got married in 2007 and my husband had one year left before he graduated in May 2008. We had this grand plan, as I’m sure many typical young folks do. We would find jobs, buy a house within 1-2 years, have children quickly after, raise a family young, pay off our house, save for college for our children, retire early, and live life traveling the world. I remember us literally having a checklist and timeline. I think many premarital counselors even encourage this kind of silly behavior, as if God won’t change things. And then here you are just married and praying for your timeline and checklist as if it was ever really God’s plan to begin with. I find myself (and you probably do too) praying far too much for God to bless my plans rather than praying that I would hear His.

Moving to North Carolina was not in the plan and as much as I wish I could explain how we made that decision and then made the move, I can’t. I can tell you that my husband and I heard “GO,” yep that’s it. I guess deep down we knew that wherever we went, God was sovereign and already knew we would and would be there waiting for us regardless of where the physical place ended up being, so North Carolina. Why Hickory? Again, weird twisted story but God was in total control, took us through some of the hardest moments of our marriage and we came out stronger than I ever imagined possible. God showed up BIG in numerous ways that I’ll write about some other day.

As far as children, I got on birth control a few weeks before we got married so it would be working once we got married and it needed to work. We made the grand decision to stop birth control about 5 months into marriage because it was literally causing me anxiety. I’m not sure if it was a hormonal thing but I knew I was putting way too much faith in MY plan and my pill than in God’s plan and His desires for my life. This is not an anti-birth control ad; this is what God was doing in OUR life and I do believe He speaks differently to people according to the plans He has for them.

It was mid-2009 when we started to wonder if something was wrong, after so much time with no birth control and nothing happening in the realm of children. In the beginning of 2010 we suffered a miscarriage but I couldn’t have been more than 5-6 weeks along when it happened. After one more similar experience we went to see doctors and get some testing done as we reached the 3-year mark of no success in pregnancy. My testing revealed I didn’t ovulate regularly and I had some hormonal imbalances that would require medication to obtain regular levels, it was an obstacle but certainly no reason why we couldn’t achieve pregnancy as long as my husband’s results were normal. My husband’s tests revealed something we weren’t expecting. While diving into his medical history we learned that he was born with cryptorchidism, which occurs in 30% of boys born prematurely. He was born prematurely at a mere 4lbs. 6oz. Due to my husband’s cryptorchidism going undiagnosed for so long he didn’t have the surgery to correct it until he was 7 years old; the surgery is something that is typically done well before a boy turns 2. Although the surgery was a success, my husband’s fertility would be in question until he was tested. When tested the doctor told him he was lucky to have anything, even the low numbers he did; only 1/3 were the right shape, 1/3 were the right strength, and 1/3 swam the right direction. Nothing anatomically would have told us anything was different about us than any other couple so the results were surprising. After seeing several doctors we were told that we would be fighting an uphill battle to ever become pregnant, and maintain a healthy pregnancy given our obstacles. My husband being an engineer and math-logic natured man figured out our chance of becoming pregnant was a mere 0.00037% - yep I’d say impossible is the word used by several doctors.

My first reaction was to be strong, react like everything is fine; God must know what He was doing. We always talked about adopting; we just wanted to be parents. I held it together for about 2 weeks like that. Telling myself I was fine, it didn’t matter and it didn’t bother me.

Then Peter came out. “What about him?” “What about her?” Why could they get pregnant and not me? Why did God plan this for us? 1 in 6 couples will not be able to get pregnant by natural means. WHY WERE WE ONE OF THEM? Why did it seem like it was an accident for so many and yet after years of actively trying I would not be able to experience this.

It took years of really processing this, realizing how expensive it was to adopt we spent 2011-2012 saving the funds to adopt. We live a debt-free life apart from our home, which is on a 15-year mortgage and set to be paid off November 2025 so we definitely did not want to go into debt in the process of adopting. Now I look back and really see what God was doing in my heart during those years.

For years I would say my reasoning for wanting to be a mother was flawed. I wanted to be a mother because it was like a right-of-passage that you were truly an adult, raising this little person. It was a piece of almost every family’s timetable to achieve these beautiful children happy and playing together on Christmas cards. It was the ability to parent alongside your best friend and spouse. It was the ability to look into your child’s face and see pieces of the man you love and yourself wrapped up in one tiny person. It was the ability to teach this little person to live a life of faith in Christ and prolong the Gospel message after you are gone (ok, that reason is a pretty decent one).

Remember earlier I mentioned that too often we pray that God will bless our plans rather than clue us into His? Well I think I finally got this when God totally disrupted our plans and we started asking for His.  As we started our adoption paperwork and that question came up “why do you want to parent?” I knew my answer had changed so much in the last year. I wanted to parent because I truly believe there are certain things about God and how He fathers me that I will not ever get until I myself am a parent. I realized that desire to know God and be in dependence on Him as a mother was so much stronger than any of my other reasons. 

For those of you who know us, you know God did allow us to become pregnant by way of pure miracle and we found out on the same day our adoption paperwork was finalized as a waiting family. Doctors were shocked when I became pregnant. They were even more shocked that I maintained that pregnancy through the first trimester, something they said was not likely. The doctor with seemingly the most doubt ended up delivering my sweet baby boy, all 9lbs 10 oz. of him, just as healthy as he could be which also defied the odds, but I’ll save that story for another time. I can tell you that even after experiencing pregnancy, it did not ‘fulfill’ me or take away the pain in that journey. Or the pain I feel now longing to be a mother to another child and knowing it is by way of adoption that God is calling us so clearly, so loudly, which is so much different than pregnancy and a road with many other obstacles than the typical route to becoming parents.

And there it was; this reminder that NOTHING in my plan will fulfill me. Nothing I could ever plan to ‘accomplish’ or ‘experience’ would take away my need to experience Christ, to know Him, to learn how He loves me. My need for HIM to fill those holes of desire that nothing on this planet could ever satisfy is so great.

We all have ‘that thing.’ We each have that earthly desire of accomplishment or experience that seems to come so easily for someone else but not to us. God has a plan. God sees you. God knows the ways to speak to your heart. God knows the experiences He wants to give you to bring you closer to Him and bring glory to Himself through your life. And it’s different for every single person.

That day at small group I admitted that I am Peter. I am Peter all the time and I think all of us are but I’ve learned to be unashamed in admitting it. The more I admit it, I see God pulling close to me, speaking to me, giving me pieces of Himself to fill those holes that I THOUGHT a particular life, experience, or accomplishment would fill. I admitted all of this pretty bluntly; I struggle with my infertility still ‘stealing’ things I thought I should have. I look at other couples able to get pregnant easily or even ‘on accident’ and think “what about them?”

Two ladies in small group announced they were pregnant; one announced that same day, moments after my blunt honesty about my struggle and one this past week. I bet a lot of you are thinking “well good luck fitting both your feet in your mouth!” But I felt so relieved that I was able to share how much Peter and I had in common. I felt even more relieved that these two women treated me like they would anyone else when announcing. They loved me knowing that my struggle is my own and it doesn’t mean I’m not thrilled for them and thrilled they’re willing to involve me. I know we all have ‘that thing’ and I’d never want mine to remove me from celebrating beautiful things, even if I don’t get to experience them in the same way. I found myself leaving thinking, “praise God I am not who I was seven years ago, I am not who I was three years ago.”

I’d never want someone who became engaged to apologize for it, even when announcing to a single friend.

I’d never want someone who became debt-free to apologize for it, even when announcing to a friend/relative living in deep debt.

I’d never want someone who became addiction-free to apologize for it, even when announcing to a friend still living in addiction.

And I’d never want someone who became pregnant to apologize for it, even when announcing to someone experiencing infertility.

Never apologize for blessings – even in the face of someone struggling with something similar. We all have our own journey to Christ and each is unique. I continue to pray that God will use days and experiences like these to shape me for HIS plan for me. I know He’s doing the same for you.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Romans 8:28

Cookies this week were taken to small group as well as 2-dozen taken to a leadership class I participate in…where there are two other women pregnant.

BAKER’S REVIEW

The peanut butter/cream cheese/heath bar cookies were AWESOME. I found the peanut butter cookies to be pretty crumbly unless you worked with the dough quite a bit before putting the balls onto the parchment papered pan for baking so WORK THAT DOUGH! I added the cream cheese frosting and heath bar pieces as an afterthought but it made the cookies seem more complex with several flavors in there! My son did not like the heath bar pieces, they were probably hard to chew too so he just ate the cookie with some frosting. He’s not your typical frosting lover, seemed much more into the crumbly cookie.

The second batch of cookies was my FAVORITE chocolate chip cookie recipe (it’s been perfected several times for the perfect chewy/soft café cookie without the prep time). I added dark chocolate chunks as well as chocolate chips that were filled with caramel, yumm. I think the caramel was what made it more interesting for my son. He seemed to like licking it off his lips and we both found quite a bit of laughter while doing it. The key to this recipe is the TALL and Skinny mounds of dough. You want them to be like egg shaped but standing tall, not on their side-helps with the shape and chewiness of the cookie, they won’t spread out thin!

Peanut Butter Cookies with Cream Cheese and Heath topping

Makes about 4 dozen cookies (I froze half the batter for an easy cookie fix later)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (not the unsweetened kind)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

1.      Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using a hand blender, cream together the butter and peanut butter. Beat in the two sugars until light, about 3 minutes.

2.     Beat in the egg and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl once to make sure they're evenly incorporated. Add the salt, baking soda and flour and beat just until combined.

3.     Give the dough one last fold with a spatula. You can chill the dough and then roll it into balls (about 3/4-inch in diameter), or arrange heaping teaspoonfuls of the soft dough directly on parchment-lined baking sheets, spaced 2 inches apart. Use the back of a fork dipped in flour to gently flatten each cookie and make a crosshatch pattern.

4.    Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, until lightly golden and just firm around the edges. Let them cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely.

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 ¼ cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

12-oz chocolate chips or chunks

1.      Preheat oven to 375, cream together butter and sugar, beat in eggs and vanilla. 2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda.

2.     Gradually beat into butter & sugar mixture.

3.     Add chocolate chips and stir in.

4.    Make TALL and skinny mounds of dough on cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

5.     Bake at 375 F for 10 minutes

52 Dozen. Week 9. What Does a Plumber and a Newborn Have in Common?

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52 Dozen. Week 9.

Alright, I’ve been talking about giving cookies to people I see naturally so this week was a funny turn-the plumber and several of his workers were able to enjoy Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies as well as a sweet friend who just had her second baby.

Let me start off my saying that the plumber was not on my ‘rough’ list that I started the year with. We actually weren’t sure we would have a plumber in this house this year but here we are so let me explain.

Last year I had a student who came with his high school class to volunteer with my work. He was living in a group home and had been in the care of the state (quite a few foster homes throughout the state) for years; I think he had been in the state’s care since he was about 12. He is delayed in his cognitive development and actually suffered a stroke at the age of 11. That’s all I really understood about his past except that none of his family members were in a place in their lives to have custody of him and they didn’t stay in contact with him once he was put into foster care. Because of his delays he was in the OCS (Occupational Course Studies) program at school (it’s the replacement for what people formerly called E.C. Exceptional Children). This student in particular was probably about 4-5 years behind and there wasn’t any expectation for him to exceed the intellectual abilities of an 8^th grade boy. He had turned 18 years old during his senior year and it was near time for graduation which meant the state had no legal obligation to him anymore which meant he had to find a place to live at graduation time or he would literally be on the streets. I know what you must be thinking: there must be some program for these kids if this really happens every year, teenagers age out and become homeless. Well, there’s ONE in our county and it has 10 beds. It’s also reliant on a young adult’s past, history, and current psychological status and behavior challenges. Due to this student’s past with behavioral issues and current needs the home didn’t feel he would be a good fit and was initially denied which meant he was weeks away from being homeless.

As this unfolded I was coming home and telling my husband about the situation and thinking “there’s got to be something we can do…” and the point I was getting at was that we could house him, if only we had a bathroom in our basement. Our home has three bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs with the main living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room. You could really live on the top floor without any need for the basement. The basement is the exact same size but has a large playroom for our son, a large living area with a pool table (the room that never quite became ‘the man cave’), an office, a storage hallway, a bedroom, and SPACE for a large bathroom. We’d talked about putting a bathroom down there so that once we had two children in the bedrooms upstairs any guests would have their own room and bathroom downstairs but with only one child thus far we didn’t feel any pressure to get the job done.

To wrap up the story I started with I will tell you that the student did get a place in this home, PRAISE GOD, and is still living there while he takes a few technical classes that will hopefully prepare him for a career. He’s such a bright young man and although his brain ticks a bit differently than others, he’s funny, smart, and clever. He had me laughing whenever he was around and he always showed me respect, he was even very friendly to my son who was only 4-5 months old at that time so had the story ended differently, you may have gotten a Christmas card with a very tall young African American man in our family but I was very pleased for him to get into this program.

So why now for the bathroom?

As soon as I felt the Lord tell me loud and clear that we WOULD have a baby in our home, I started preparing a nursery. I bought furniture from friends when their children outgrew it, I painted the walls with murals of giraffes, and as friends learned of my preparations I got two responses: some friends joined in my faith journey and gave me baby items while others thought I was straight up bananas! Several doctors, even specialists, looked me in the eye and told me we would NOT conceive a child naturally and that IVF may work but may not because of our unique set of challenges. We were still a ways from having enough money to pay adoption fees so we were a few years out from having a baby, at best.Just to be clear, I started and finished our nursery in 2011. I had my son at the end of 2013 which means we had a fully functional baby nursery in our house for 2 years...without a sign of a baby.

I’m sure to some it looked nuts, especially for friends who were pregnant and knew they were having a child, to see me running around preparing for a baby in my home.

But you know who else looked nuts?

Noah.

I’ve always looked at the story of Noah as good inspiration for getting prepared for what God has promised. I know many don’t understand how someone could hear God’s voice as clearly as Noah, I mean check out Genesis 6, the directions the Lord gives Noah are ridiculously detailed.

But the Lord’s timeline was NOT clear, at all. But Noah did it. Noah was faithful in what God asked him to do to prepare for the future without a clue when God would call him to get on board that ark and round up thousands of animals. Some theologians have estimated that it took Noah around 100 years (or more) to build the ark.

Of course when I was able to conceive, NATURALLY, through God’s grace and plan several people asked why we would continue with this call to adopt and some even suggested we may have heard God wrong. Hmm yea, I don’t think so. I know it took this situation with our natural bodies being broken to get our minds wrapped around the idea that we just wanted to know God as a parent and therefore parent. Having a child biologically or in a different fashion didn’t matter.In fact, now being a parent and feeling such a deep connection God as my father and knowing what it feels like to parent, I can't imagine not welcoming any child into my home and sharing that love with them the way God has ADOPTED me and shared His love with me.

The story of our son is indeed a miracle and God crossed a lot of raging seas to reach us in that way, defeating so many circumstances of this broken world to give us such a gift but I can tell you for sure that that miracle does not change that call to prepare ourselves (and our home) to accommodate the one(s) God is calling to our family through adoption. Our son is one piece of this huge puzzle in our life leading to adoption.

 "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." (Hebrews 11:7)

We are at a crossroad in our journey to adopt. The Lord has definitely awoken us to an array of possibilities for our family and we COULD go with any of them and do it in efforts to serve the Lord, love one of His children, and be obedient to that call but we want God to have His way, not our own eagerness to welcome a new little one to our home. In effort to respect the fact that God has not told us finitely which path to take we wanted to make some effort to show our faith and to make an active step in our adoption even though we are not fully prepared to file our paperwork and restart the adventure we were in when we found out we were pregnant.

Thus, the bathroom. The bathroom in the basement is a physical act we can take to show this rooted belief that our family will be growing and we will need space for what God is calling us to do and for us to be prepared for that means we won’t have to turn down any such opportunity to grow simply because we haven’t completed projects around the house or made accommodations for this new addition.

The bathroom is ALMOST done and has been quite a project for us DIYers. The plumber ran the pipes and set up fixtures and an electrician ran some wires but my husband has done most the rest of the work and I’m so proud of how much he’s put into getting this done. I’ll post pictures when it’s all done! The plumbers have put in the most work to the job and even worked around our son’s naptime over the past two weeks so they definitely deserved the cookies!

As far as the rest of the cookies I delivered them to a sweet friend who just had her second baby in two years, I’ve always been impressed with her sweet spirit toward her son and it’s great to see her loving on a new one. It’s pretty amazing how God surrounded us with several friends whose children are the same age as my son so he has some sweet friends to grow up with so I enjoyed our visit watching the boys play and me picking her brain for wisdom about having two in the house since I know it’s in the cards for us too.

I wish I could share more about the different aspects of this journey that have come more into light over the past few weeks but we are still praying through many of them and patiently waiting upon the Lord who offers all we need to guide us, in HIS time.

We appreciate your continued prayers for our growing family and the deep love that’s growing in my heart for the future child(ren) God has for us.

BAKER’S REVIEW

These cookies were ridiculously easy. My son was really into bananas for a while so we bought a ton of them each week at the store and now it’s more like ½ of one a day which meant TOO MANY BANANAS and since my job is in the fight to end hunger we fight hard not to waste food in this house which mean using the bananas. I’m not a big banana fan but my husband is and my son still enjoys them. I found a recipe online for Banana Chocolate Chip but changed it…a lot. Which means I basically made up a new recipe. They turned out yummy and chewy, not mushy, like I was expecting from using bananas so I even liked them! My son found them really easy to eat and I could rationalize that they had a healthy element to them and gave him two, which he enjoyed!

Banana Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup melted coconut oil
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 large bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 small box instant vanilla pudding mix

1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of kosher salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions:

1.      Beat oil, sugars, egg and vanilla medium until combined.

2.     Add the flour, pudding mix, baking soda and  salt.  Beat just till combined.

3.     Stir in chocolate chips.

4.    Use your hands to form about 12 balls of dough.  It’s a little tricky to work the dough so just press tightly together and stick in any resistant chips.

5.     Chill this dough for 30 mins in freezer, covered or place in fridge to chill for a few hours.

6.     Preheat oven to 350F and line a cookie sheet with parchment.  Bake for about 10-12 minutes.  Do not overbake-they will finish baking as they cool on sheet.

52 Dozen. Week 8. Can You Say Random??

52 Dozen. Week 8.

Visitors and the Random People in Your Life.

I know not everyone enjoys visitors but I love them! I love hosting people in my home, making them feel comfortable, having fun, making them want to come back, serving them food, letting them know that I appreciate them making the effort to swing by, even if it is only for a minute (literally).

For this week’s cookies I told myself that I would give the next batch to RANDOM people without setting out a plan for why they’d be getting them. This made baking the cookies pretty cool because I spent my prayer time literally praying for the people God puts in my life in the most unsought after ways. These are people that I didn’t particularly go looking for; they just landed in my life.

Do you have anyone like that?

Perhaps they turned into one of the MANY random friends you have on Facebook. You know the ones I mean, the people you meet once and they friend you on Facebook and to be polite you accept their friend request so you end up seeing pictures of their family and life but aren’t actually apart of it. Other people you meet randomly through a common friend or interest and become close friends who you learn a lot about and end up seeing all the time. Other random friends are people you work with. Although you choose to go to work each day, let’s be honest, you know the people you’ve intentionally sought after to have a relationship with and those you haven’t. And then there’s family. You acquire family when you get married or when someone else in your family gets married. They’re nice people but not necessarily people you would be friends with if you weren’t married. I’ve acquired quite a few sweet and funny people in my life through my marriage; the same is true for when my sister got married. I acquired a funny brother-in-law who makes my sister happy and they both make a great team as parents of my nephew. I don’t think I ever would have known my brother-in-law if my sister hadn’t married him, and obviously I wouldn’t have my adorable nephew. You see? Random people that join your life because of the path God put you on. Cool to think about right?

So here is goes: the random people in my life who received cookies this past week…

·      I had the privilege of hosting my in-laws as visitors this past weekend.

·      I had a friend swing by (for literally one minute) to pick up a bag she ordered from me (I sell Thirty One as one of the many efforts to save for our upcoming adoption).

·      Several co-workers who were literally on my list for an encouraging pick-me-up.

(I know when you see the recipe and review for these cookies you each will be sad that you didn’t make a random appearance over the last week. )

My in-laws were actually planning to be here the week after Christmas; I was very much looking forward to it because we didn’t have any family here for either of the holidays. That was a first for our 7+ years of marriage; we normally got to see at least one member of our family. But last minute they changed their plans and weren’t able to come. I was surprised how upset I was about it. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to it or how much I valued hosting people in my home. I had several things planned for that time. My husband had taken off of work an entire two weeks anticipating their visit so when they weren’t able to come it left our family of three lots of time to spend with each other, it was a wonderful way to end the year but it still made me sad to remember how far we really were from family.

As a rescheduled time, my in-laws came this past weekend since my husband’s birthday was only two weeks ago. It always seems like there are tons of events the weekends that no one is coming into town and as soon as someone is visiting there is nothing going on. This led us to spending a good amount of time at the house.

My mother-in-law and I went to an art studio to paint some pretty door-hangers and I got three things out of the experience: time one-on-one with my mother-in-law to just relax and do something fun together, a really cute anchor to hang on my garage door, and a job offer. I guess the studio has been looking for artists to hire and they saw my piece and thought I’d be a good fit. It sounds like a great opportunity to do a job that would be pretty relaxing and fun (and some extra money put away for the adoption) so I’ve made contact with them to see what this would look like; pretty random, right? (I’m sure if it works out for me to do it I’ll have even more random people in my life!)

As a family we went to a bowling fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters since my husband is a Big Brother to a 5^th grader in a school nearby his workplace. He’s been meeting with this kiddo for a little over 3 years and he’s made huge positive changes over the past few years. I wouldn’t say all of it is due to my husband meeting with him but having a regular, steady, safe, and supportive relationship that meets every week makes a huge influence on someone’s ability to succeed. It’s pretty cool to know my husband was willing to sacrifice time he could have been doing anything else in order to mentor this young man. (Sorry, that was a bit random too…I’m a roll with proving my point about random though right?)

Anyway, back to the topic of cookies to be handed out! Of course my in-laws got cookies, they visited with us and made a long trip to do it, 9 hours is a pretty long drive, one we have yet to venture with my son, we have flown the times we have been down! I know that even though we don’t have cable and we live pretty quietly for several hours a day (nap time and an early bedtime) they were good sports and I was happy to get the time with them. My father-in-law even helped my husband put in a doorway for the bathroom we are putting in our basement (I’ll save that info for another post).

The next person who appeared at my house was very random but actually someone I intended to give cookies to sometime this year anyway, a sweet friend I met while learning about essential oils (yes, I am that all-natural-as-much-as-possible lady so we do essential oils in our house until medicine is necessary and we do vaccinate). This sweet friend was the one teaching the class on essential oils at a local shop where we learned all things cloth-diaper (yes we do that too). Since I was becoming a direct buyer, we had to keep in contact outside of the class and she added me to a few Facebook groups so I could dive into the world of essential oils with some resources in hand. Since we were already friends she saw when I posted an invite to a Pinterest Party at my house and wanted to come. I was SO glad to have her respond and then come. I posted it to purposely invite people I didn’t necessarily hang out with all the time and having her respond and come was really encouraging! While there we got to talk about her adventures in the world of adoption and we seem to have very similar hearts about parenting so it left me eager to see friendship blossom between us. The bag she was picking up was linked to a party she hosted and was for a little girl she’s currently fostering. Even when we hooked up for me to give her catalogs to do her party we ended up talking for about an hour in a parking lot. I’m really looking forward to seeing where our friendship leads. And just to prove how randomly God can put people into your life, it turns out she is the cousin of one of my son’s teachers at daycare! Crazy right? So yes I gave her a big bag of cookies when she swung by to pick up her newest diaper bag!

The last dozen cookies were divided among several co-workers. I’m a part of a new small group at work that plans to help make employees feel appreciated…I fear I may have started this conversation but I am pretty happy to see where it’s led. If you remember my first post of the year I gave cookies to several social workers that were working on the most recent death of an infant in our county. I decided an encouraging hand-written card and bag full of cookies for each worker (including the supervisor) would offer some much needed reassurance that others appreciated them. I specifically asked the supervisor to keep it anonymous. It sounds like he did and he didn’t abide by my request. Although he withheld my name from the workers who got the cookies he passed along the story of my deed to my supervisor and our department directors. He expressed how moved he was that someone completely unrelated to the case or the workers would do something like that. He also expressed how much it meant to the workers who received them and what it meant for him as a supervisor to be able to have that form of appreciation to give them. Since this news traveled to the “top” I haven’t been treated any differently but I think it spurred the conversation of how to build similar efforts and involve others so we could impact more workers and show each other how much we are valued in the often thankless work we do. Thus, this work group was formed. In our first meeting my anonymous deed was mentioned along with some other efforts to spur positive work culture in our agency. Consequently this led to each member of our small group being assigned several names of other employees to give some form of anonymous encouragement to: a card, a candy bar, a baked goodie, a funny cartoon, a decorated office door, etc. There were lots of ideas but each person had the freedom to choose what they would to share the love and pay it forward as an experiment to see how far the efforts would reach. Of course I chose to give them cookies and a note!

For me, this year of cookies meant being intentional and thoughtful, committing to the people God has placed in my life, to love on them through cookies, and spend time thinking and praying about how God has chosen to weave our lives together (whether they are in small or big ways). This meeting was pretty cool because I felt like this act of obedience of using a love of baking was playing a very small role in stirring some of God’s intentions for my workplace. It feels so good to work underneath people who love others and several who are very outspoken believers in Christ. I can clearly see how God has placed us all together in this line of work to reach our community in some of the most practical yet overlooked ways. I’m so grateful to see how I’m a part of God’s big plan for our small town.

I know that God is calling my family into deep waters in the near future…but this small act of obedience in giving what I have to offer and being intentional about it is teaching me to hear Him more clearly and see Him at work in others’ lives as much as my own.

What can you do to change the world God has placed you in?

I hope this scripture written by Paul encourages you to find that purpose God has inscribed into your heart.

2 Corinthians 9:6-8

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

And in case you’re a music lover like me, perhaps a song will help encourage you to dig deep and discover that gift God has given you to share…

“I said, God put a million, million doors in the world
For His love to walk through
One of those doors is you

Oh, we bring the kingdom come
Oh, with every act of love
Jesus, help us carry You
Alive in us, Your light shines through
With every act of love
We bring the kingdom”

-Jason Gray

Hot Cocoa Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 4 packages (or 3/4 cups) hot cocoa mix
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup Marshmallow Bits (you could substitute with mini marshmallows or just cut up the large ones into small pieces)

Instructions

1.      Heat oven to 350°F.

2.     Beat butter and sugars in large bowl with standing mixer until light and fluffy.

3.     Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.

4.    Combine next 4 ingredients. Gradually beat into butter mixture until blended.

5.     Stir in chocolate chips and Mallow Bits. Cover and chill 1 hour.

6.     Drop 2 tablespoons dough, 2 inches apart, onto baking sheets.

7.     Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

8.     Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes; remove to wire racks and cool.

Baker’s Review:

These cookies tasted best warm for obvious reasons…HOT COCOA cookies. They still tasted wonderful at room temperature but seriously had a hot cocoa essence when warm because of those gooey marshmallows and the melting chocolate made it seem so rich. I actually used the cocoa packets with mini marshmallows in them as well as using several large marshamallows I already had and cutting them into little pieces. I also used dark chocolate chips. These weren’t the most toddler friendly cookies because of the marshmallows and the fact that my son’s teeth are taking FOREVER to come in so he has about 8 “half” teeth and three whole ones (insert shameless giggle because they make his little smile so adorable). These cookies were very easy to make despite having the ‘separate’ bowl mixtures. I think many non-bakers shy away from recipes that require a set of dry ingredients and a set of wet ingredients but I promise most of those are the best tasting cookies because all ingredients are given a fair shot at your taste buds. Put everything in one bowl and hope they mix well sometimes leaves you with an inconsistent mixture of ingredients. Anyway, back to the cookies, everyone who had them gave them rave reviews and I definitely recommend them for a cold night with a cold glass of milk…and heat them up for about 10 second before eating. Yum!!