Calli

I don’t mind answering with another dish as well 🥰 It was hard to choose just one in the first place!

This is a great challenging question. I actually am not sure the last time I read a book and was really taken with the characters as opposed to impressed with the overall piece (owing in part to my endeavours to read a large amount of non fiction of late). I think I’d have to go back to childhood favourites like Anne of Greengables, though again I have some trouble remembering if I really loved particular characters rather than the story as a whole. I hope that’s not too disappointing!

I have a wonderful cheesy recipe for you!

This is a ricotta brown butter and garlic sage crumb rigatoni (what a mouthful!) and it’s got to be my husbands favourite pasta dish ever. As for my favourite cheese, I can never pass up the Meredith marinated goats cheese - so perfect!

Cling to Jesus. Turn to Him. He waits for you, not like an angry father prepared to scold, but a concerned father hoping for you to just come home.

Come home to the Father, His arms are wide open for you. He loves you, to the point of death and back. The nail marks in His hands and feet say so, the scar in His side says so. The cross says so, and the empty tomb says so.

I never understood why God would tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It always seemed cruel - but isn’t God supposed to be a loving father and a just ruler? How could telling a righteous man to kill his own child be fair? 

And then you go back and read the story. Abraham, a righteous follower of God, had failed. He and Sarah couldn’t tolerate the presence of their slave Hagar since Isaac had been born. They hated her child Ishmael. (Abraham’s child too, remember. Just as much as Isaac was.) Abraham gave Hagar a death sentence - he sent her out into the desert with her son and left her to die there. To die of thirst, of heat, of exhaustion, of hunger, of fear. 

Yet God saw Hagar. A slave, a foreigner, a mother to an illegitimate child, an imposter - those were human words for her. God looked down and said My Daughter, My Beloved, You Brave and Selfless Mother - I see you. He overturned the sentence Abraham had set and not only provided water to save the lives of Hagar and Ishmael but whispered the same promise in Hagar’s ear that He had whispered in Abraham’s. Maybe He took her to a hill and showed her the stars too. Maybe He sent a soft breeze across the desert to stir the sand and say to Hagar - your children will outnumber these. The God of living water has seen you. 

And then God turned to Abraham and said your turn. Take your son, your beloved son, Abraham, the promise for your future, and take the life from his lungs. You had no remorse to do the same thing to Ishmael - Ishmael, your son. And Abraham felt the sun burning his face and his body faint from thirst and walking through the wilderness, and he felt the pain in his heart at the fear of losing his child. For a moment, he sees through Hagar’s eyes, squinting from the sun and sting of sand. And this time Abraham listens. This time he obeys God - and obedience comes in the form of the sun glinting off a knife, of Isaac’s terrified sobs. God does not need to say this act is justice. No words could make Abraham understand deeper than the terror and grief in his chest. 

Mercy comes for Abraham as it came for Hagar first.       

Ishmael and Isaac are both spared, both protected, both children of the same promise. 

The sacrifice was never just a test. It was not some story to confuse or contradict the character of God.

Guys, I love raspberries. Raspberry iced tea, raspberry yogurt, raspberry smoothies, raspberries on their own. I adore them. They're a pretty color and when they're blended they're another pretty color and they taste amazing and they've got a super fun texture.

Tonight I was treating myself to one of my favorite foods: yogurt with honey and frozen raspberries mixed in. I can't get enough of that stuff (and being on an antibiotic gives me an excuse to eat as much yogurt as I want ;))

As I was stirring up my treat, I couldn't help but wonder: Did God know? Did God think about this moment? When God made bees, did He think about how their honey would sweeten my snack this evening? When God made cows, did He consider which cow's milk would make my yogurt? When God made raspberries, did He know we'd freeze them so we can eat them year round? Did He know how much I'd love the flavor and the color and the texture? Do you think I was on God's mind when he made raspberries?

Because I think I was, and it's incredible. God made raspberries and knew I'd love them. What else did He make with us on his mind? As He forms each daisy, does he think "I can't wait until Kazzy sees this one?" As He sends the sun and rain on the crops of wheat that'll become the flour that'll become the cakes I bake, does He think about the joy that I get from doing that? He created the sand that became the glass became the lenses of my glasses— when He did that, did he realize He was granting me greater sight?

I think He did know, and it's honestly blowing my mind how many blessings I have that remind me how often I am on God's mind.

God, thank you for raspberries, and yogurt and honey and sunshine, and all the little blessings I take for granted every moment 🙏