Prayerful Thoughts

You may know from the little "Here's What I'm Reading" section on my blog, that I am reading E.M. Bounds on Prayer. Well the chapter I read today was called Prayer and Desire. It was so challenging and so encouraging, I thought I'd share a few little exerts.

The deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer.

Even if it is discovered that the desire is honestly absent, we should pray anyway. We ought to pray. The ought comes in, in order that desire and expression are produced. God's Word commands it. Our judgment tells us we ought to pray-whether we feel like it or not-and not allow our feelings to determine our prayer habits. In such circumstances, we ought to pray for the desire to pray. This desire is God-given and heaven-born. We should pray for desire.

The dampening of the flame of holy desire is destructive to the vital, aggressive forces in church life. God expects to be represented by a fiery church or He is not, in any proper sense, represented at all. God Himself is all fire; and His church, if it is to be like Him, must also be like white heat. The only things the church can afford to be on fire about are the great, eternal interests of heaven-born, God-given faith.

Desire is intense, but narrow. It cannot spread itself over a wide area. It wants a few things and wants them badly. It wants them so badly that nothing but God's willingness to answer can bring it ease or contentment. (Psalm 27:4)

So, praying is, after all, inspired to seek after God. Prayer desire is ignited to see God and have a clearer, fuller, sweeter, and richer revelation of God. So, to those who pray this way, the Bible becomes a new Bible and Christ a new Savior by the light and revelation of the prayer closet.

The essential prerequisite for all true praying is a deep-seated desire that seeks after God Himself. It remains unsatisfied until the choice gifts in heaven have been richly and abundantly given.

For anyone wanting to study prayer, I highly recommend this book. I'll probably talk more about it, and let you know my thoughts when I'm finished, but folks, that'll be a while...it's a big book. I think that he actually wrote 7 smaller books, and this is just all of them put together. Even if you picked up one of the smaller books, I think it would bless you.

Another New Recipe: Brunswick Stew

Unfortunately, there's nothing too exciting going on here in the Cease household, so all you get is another dinner blog. Today's new recipe: Brunswick Stew, also out of the October issue of Cooking Light. Casey's out traveling this week, so I thought this Southern recipe would be a good one to try by myself. (My husband is not a big fan of vegetables in general, and specifically detests lima beans...and this recipe's gotta lotta limas!)

Anyways, this was a pretty simple recipe, although I would change some things next time and maybe save it for a cooler day :). Taste test: a thumb and a half up...if you like limas that is!

What you see in there is chicken, red bell pepper, celery, onions, corn and LIMAS! It also has a little tomato paste, a little chicken stock, and a little Tabasco sauce, although I would change it to a lot of Tabasco sauce! It was pretty good. I'm glad I gave the Brunswick Stew a try.

Alright, well, that's all I got today. Since Casey's out of town, I'm gonna go spend a little time with Tolstoy. Good Night!

A New Recipe: Baked Ziti with Homemade Marinara

I always think it's kinda funny when people blog about their food, but blogging has been increasingly on my mind lately, and as I was attempting this new recipe, all I could think about was, "I need to blog about this!" So this is a blog about my dinner.

The other day, I picked up a copy of Cooking Light magazine. It had some delicious, healthy fall recipes (attempting to disregard the lingering summer weather), and I have been wanting to try something new and hopefully add to my very modest culinary repertoire. So after a quick perusal, I decided on Baked Ziti with Homemade Marinara.

Monday, step #1: I made the marinara. The recipe makes a lot, so you can actually use it for several different recipes. I'm pretty proud of it. I've never made my own pasta sauce before!

Today, step #2: Make baked ziti using the marinara. Super easy! But, the magazine said to add the turkey meat to the casserole without browning it first, and it would fully cook as it baked. This was sketchy to me, but I did as I was told. Anyways, here it is...

Now, I don't know about you, but I try to make it a rule not to serve new recipes to dinner guests. Well, Casey was confident that it was going to be delicious, and so invited our little Brenham gang over to try it. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I didn't notice anyone dry heaving or anything. I thought it tasted pretty good, but I couldn't fully enjoy it, knowing that it was quite possible that I had just poisoned my only friends in Brenham with salmonella. This is exactly why I am a firm believer in the trial run!

Anyways, here are our sweet, potentially very sick Brenham friends. The Bever's are on the left, and the Hyde's and their son Jonas on the right. The cute one in the middle, that's my Casey.

FYI- I will probably try the recipe again, but just for my own peace of mind, I'll brown the meat first. :)

Round Top: Warrenton with Jessica

After 6 months of waiting, and weeks of anxious anticipation, Wednesday, my friend Jessica and I made our (delightfully short) way to Round Top (miles and miles of glorious trash and treasure, an antiquers paradise!). Jessica took me to Warrenton, a site she enjoyed in the past. Enjoyable indeed!

No longer a Round Top virgin, I went with a few "objectives" in mind. This helped me to admire with eyes only, while only the things on my list could be admired with money. My list contained, in order of importance, a church pew, a small white cabinet to hang over the potty, and a short cabinet to hold towels and shower stuff (this item wasn't really a possibility, but I thought I'd see what was out there).

So we began to wander through the field of tents and booths, chatting, simply enjoying the experience and the beautiful day. For the first couple of hours we didn't find much. Jessica found a $3 olive greenish, velvet throw pillow - What a steal! We decided to grab some lunch ($9 salty, chicken salad sandwich! Ridiculous!) and regain our strength for the hours of shopping ahead.

After lunch I was more successful. I found a number of beautiful church pews, some which were WAY out of my price range. Brief story about this: I had found a pew that I liked and could afford, but not wanting to make any hasty decisions I decided to look around a few more booths before committing. Right around the corner there was a beautiful pew, but it was a little too expensive. The dealer approached me and I told him that I loved his pew but it was a little more than I could spend. I told him I was hoping to find one around X number of dollars. Then, he said quite smugly, "Ha, good luck." I was a little irritated by his response and wanted to let him know that he was not going to crush my hopes, and so I said, clearly without thinking, "Well you're a stinker!" I said that! What! A stinker?! Oh, Steph. Not too long after that, I went back to the nice dealer named Robert and purchased my church pew. And then only a few yards away, I found my white cabinet. Only 40 bucks! What a happy day!

We strolled around for several more hours. Pressure off to find the "perfect" thing, it was fun to just browse and talk. We drove down to another little tent where we met another Robert. Cute as a button, Robert was an older gentleman with a gray Santa Clause beard. He has 8 kids, used to be a mechanic, collects books and wind chimes, which he also makes. The man said he had 60 wind chimes in his back yard. Can you imagine what his house sounds like in a thunderstorm! Anyways, we chatted with him for quite a while, and couldn't say no to the illustrations we found.

So that was our day. Super fun. Here are some pictures of our Round Top treasures!

Here's my church pew in it's happy, new home.

Once the cabinet is hung, I'll post some photos. I've been meaning to show everyone our new, beautiful bathroom anyway!

Gratitude...It's Contagious

I've been browsing around my little blogging community and people are taking a moment to mention the little things in life they're thankful for. I couldn't resist. Here's my list:



- unintentional rhyming :)
- Braelyn learning new words
- snuggling
- comfy pants
- afternoons spent with mom
- coffee with a girlfriend
- baby carriers
- invite-yourself-over privileges
- chatting on-line
- Diet Dr. Pepper (scratch that - a large Diet Dr. Pepper from Sonic!)
- giving something ugly a new and clever function

That's what I'm grateful for this week. Your turn!

Broken and Boiling Over

Last week or so, I began to study the book of Colossians. I've read through it all at once and in chunks at a time, but I wanted to really grab hold of it, to really taste and digest it. So I grabbed my fairly unused copy of Search the Scriptures and began again. I started yesterday and I have to say that I was not prepared for the amazingly satisfying and disturbing effect these holy meals would have on me.

Yesterday's Scriptures were Colossians 1:1-14, and the book asked a couple of questions, but there was one question in particular that didn't strike me as much at first, but as I began journaling and processing my answer, I was ushered into the Presence of God and my heart was simultaneously broken and boiling over. The question was this:

"What result did the Gospel produce in the experience of the Colossians who heard it?
Short answer: Faith and love for all the saints.

Then the book asked:
Have you made as much progress as they had?
My automatic response: I'm sure I could be doing more.
That covers that, right?

Well, I sat over the Scripture and the question a while longer, and the word "all" stuck out to me like a sore thumb in "the love which you have for all the saints." (v.4) All the saints...hmm? At that moment I was drenched in a wave of Truth and conviction. The Lord sort of opened my eyes to my own life and allowed me to see, at least in part, what was lacking.

If someone was going to capture my life in a picture, containing all the people that I continually interact with, my closest friendships, my acquaintances, the people I am drawn to and initiate conversation with, the people that I serve and serve with...would this photograph resemble the Kingdom of God? Would it show God's creativity and the diversity of His people? Would the poor in spirit be represented? Would the "outsiders" that Jesus so often spent time with have their place in my photograph? The truth is that my picture is lacking, incomplete.

But here, in this sort of sad, heart-breaking realization, I found my heart boiling over with hope and thanksgiving. It is an encouraging thing when the Lord reveals sin...it means that by His grace and mercy, He wants to go to work in you! He is not done! There is more! I believe in the promise that He wants to make my picture...perfect.

"For I am confident of this very thing,
that He who began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."
Philippians 1:6

Thanks for letting me share. Quite honestly, I was working (with a ridiculous amount of excitement) on a blog about my trip to Round Top. But after reading today, I just couldn't talk about antiques when the Word of God had so satisfied my soul. Don't get me wrong, the Round Top blog is still coming, just not today. :)
God Bless!

Braelyn: Part 2

Alright, well I hope you'll allow me to continue in my shameless mommy moment. Here are a couple more pictures of Braelyn engrossed in some of her favorite pastimes.

Reading. She was having trouble deciding on a book. Daddy has so many!


Geology. The game is usually to see how many rocks she can hold at once.


Talking on the phone.

Or talking on the toothbrush.

There happens to be a number of other items that double as a phone (in case you're in a pinch):
- Baby powder
- Power strip (Plugged in, mind you!)
- Very small, chokable G.I. Joe helmet (which I think she was actually pretending that it was a hearing aid. Kids these days...they want to grow up so fast!)
- Spoon
- Dog bone

And here is one of MY favorite games.
"Braelyn, how much does mommy love you?"

"THIS MUCH!"

Thanks for letting me share.