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What’cha doin?

Happy Saturday, friends… I was just thinking about you and how very far behind I am on catching up with everyone’s posts. Hope to do that tonight, and am looking forward to it.

I just remembered how to add a few more people I’m following to my side bar. Their blogs have blessed me, and I’m sure they’ll bless you, too. šŸ˜‰

We’re hanging out at home today working around the house and yard. What are you doing today? Whatever it is, I pray that in the midst of it, you can savor the “sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ in every place.” (2 Cor. 2:14). Love to each of you…

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Smelling Coffee turned ONE this week. :-)


It’s been so busy around here that I didn’t realize until I went to bed last night that I missed the 1st Birthday of Smelling Coffee! I’ve been a blogger for a year and two days now – and have loved every minute of it. šŸ™‚

I love having a place to journal and share life and pictures and all God is doing. And I love how I’ve made new friends along the way – friends from all over the world!

In reflecting on this past year, though, I realize that having a blog is like having a plant. It does need care and attention to thrive and grow. Too much time without any attention makes it wither and lose its vitality. And too much attention can be unhealthy for everyone.

Early in my blogging career (ha ha) I read a post via Rocks in My Dryer “Works for Me Wednesdays” about how not to let blogging take over living – and that’s so true. It’s taken a while, but I think I’m finally finding a balance of what works for this blogging season of life.

It certainly has been an amazingly full year – and I’m so glad to have much of it journaled here on Smelling Coffee. It’s been a blessing to walk through these days with you! The Lord has improved me through you, your blogs, your ideas, your devotions, and your comments here on Smelling Coffee.

Just for fun, I went back over the lists of my posts and pulled out a few that I consider to be “favorites.” (And in doing that, I found my Lemon cookie recipe that I couldn’t find for this week’s Tasty Tuesday. Funny thing – it was written on July 8, 2008 – exactly one year ago from this weeks Tasty Tuesday’s post!)

Very first post

Favorite šŸ™‚ Post – Attitude is Everything

Favorite “tip” Post – Dressing Like the Lilies (The key to Staying “fashionably current”)

Favorite “Word” post from the early blog-year – An Expectant Wait (This re-blessed me as I read it again today!)

Favorite early post when I had no readers (smile) – Why Does This Keep Happening to My Hot Dog?

All-Time Favorite post – I am Now a Leaping Cow!

Thanks, friends, for being a part of this past year. I look forward to all the Lord has in store for the next.. and I’m hoping part of what He has plans includes a super blog redesign one of these days! šŸ™‚ Blessings to each of you…

With much love,
Jennifer

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Lemon Cookies & a Treasure from the Word

Hi friends~ You have been such a blessing to me and to my family through your comments and your prayers for us as we seek and wait upon the Lord. What a gift you are to all of us!!!

I know I posted this last year, but for the life of me, I can’t find it on my own blog! So, I’ll re-post, because THIS IS TRULY THE BEST LEMON COOKIE EVER! I made some a few weeks ago and can’t wait to make them again.

Cake Mix Lemon Cookies

1 box Lemon Supreme Cake mix

1/3 cup shortening

1/3 cup butter (or marg.), softened

1 egg

Mix all ingredients for 2 minutes. Roll in balls and place on cookie sheet. I press the balls out with the sugar coated bottom of a drinking glass. (The colored decorator sugar looks even prettier.)

Bake at 375 for 9-12 minutes, until they are light brown around the edges. Let cool and enjoy. (Sometimes I frost them with lemon frosting… yumm!)For more easy and delicious recipes, pop over to “Tasty Tuesdays” at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam. There’s always something special in those lists of recipes.

Thanks, again, for being a part of what God is doing in our lives. We have been very aware of His presence this past week, and we know that He will take care of us. I want to share with you a special treasure the Lord gave me in my time with Him. What a mighty and faithful God we serve!

“For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts in You [leaning and believing on You, committing all and confidently looking to You, and that without fear or misgiving]!” Psalm 84:11-12

“Sun… Shield…Present grace and favor…future glory” – What a treasure! Trusting in Him “…without fear or misgiving” – What a goal and prayer for today and everyday!

Love and Our Lord’s peace to each of you…
Jennifer

April 2010: Edited to add another link to Tasty Tuesday.  and Tempt My Tummy šŸ™‚

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Joy comes in the morning… and in the mourning.

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5

This past October, when we took our first family vacation to the beach, I think I took as many pictures of the sunrises and sunsets as I did my children! They were incredibly beautiful and screamed of the glory of the Lord.

My favorite thing about the sunrise was that right behind the sun, the sky was still dark. In one glance, we could see night and day meeting. And as the sun continued to inch its way up the horizon, the sky gradually lightened until the darkness was completely out of sight and out of mind. A brand new day stretched out before us – full of hope and of things only the Lord would know about until He revealed them to us as the day unfolded.

Last weekend, life got a little dark – full of shadows of uncertainty and fear. But God… God has used His Word stored in our hearts, read in our Bibles, and sent through YOU – dear readers and friends – to strengthen us and keep our faces upturned to Him. And we have joy. In the midst of mourning a loss and a change, praise God… we have His peace and joy.

Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for sending me encouragement through your comments and e-mails. I’m printing and saving these words from you because they/you are a part of this chapter God is writing in our lives.

Kim of Seasons of My Heart sent me something I want to share with you. She saw it on the blog, Peace for the Journey. May they bless you as they did Kim, and as they did me.

“I had a thought during my devotional time this morning. A quick word for some good friends who, perhaps like me, need a reminder about our ā€œdown the roadā€™s.ā€

We are prone to them, are we not? To our looking down the road, planning our down the road, worrying about our down the road, all the while missing out on the present moments given to us by a gracious God who offers them for our reverent celebration.

We fore go the pleasure and peace of a current moment because we allow the heaviness of a down the road future to claim our thoughts, and therefore, shackle our capacity to live in the simplicity of a single pause.

This one. Not in the ones to come somewhere, sometime down the road, but the moment we hold in our hands right now.

Do we have enough faith for this kind of living? A faith that is content to live gradually rather than having to see the end before it arrives?

How different would our journeys walk if we could take hold of this one truth and embed it into our way of ā€œdoingā€ life?

Not that we donā€™t plan and prepare with our futures in mind, but rather that we engage each new step with the understanding that our Jesus is our down the road Companion. He goes before us, he comes behind us. He walks beside us. He lives within us. We cannot help but be surrounded by his matchless and unfathomable grace as we go.

We can refuse it. We can close our eyes to his abiding and ever-present comfort and go it alone, trusting in our own feeble attempts at having life make sense. But in doing so, we miss the momentary peace that enables us to live worry-free and in complete trust of a future we cannot see.

I know. My heart writes from a place of understanding. My down the roadā€™s have been all-consuming as of late, denying me the privilege of a moment by moment, peaceful rest.

I can live in a moment, friends. Iā€™m not sure I can handle the holy ā€œrest of themā€ in a single breath, but I have a down the road Jesus who can. He stands before me this day and asks for my trust. For my complete gaze on his willing sacrifice that enables me to live in a moment and then to move on to the next.

When I place the cross before me, it blocks my vision from the unfolding of events that lie ahead of me. It covers them all and shadows me with a sacred perspective that shouts victory and triumph at every turn.

Jesus is the Way. He is our down the road. He is the pleasure and Peace of our every moment.

Live in those moments this day, and let Jesus be your more than enough to see you through to tomorrow. “


“You make the places where morning and evening have birth to shout for joy.” Psalm 65:8 (Amp)

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This is where "The Rubber meets the Road"

Yesterday, our family entered a new and unexpected ā€œwalk of faithā€. Iā€™ve been praying for many of you who are already on this journey, and now my family joins you. As of July 15, my husbandā€™s position at Lifeway will be deleted, and he will be out of a job. I can hardly believe what I just typed.

Although Iā€™m in shock right now and have cried so much that my eyes are swollen, I can see bits and pieces of how the Lord was preparing us for this and setting us up to be ready for this next step of our walks with Him. Some of the obvious ones are:

~Without my understanding of what the Lord was doing, He called me to step down from being the Teaching Director of our local community Bible Study.

~My responsibilities with Praying Parents ended at the end of this past school year when Abigail moved to middle school.

~The Lord led us to repaint our house and start getting it ready to sell. We thought we were doing this so that in a year or so, we could move to a home with an apartment in it where my mom could come and live with us. Maybe we were, and maybe we will need to sell it now.

~Iā€™ve been doing Jennifer Rothschildā€™s study ā€œWalking by Faithā€, and have been soaking up every word of that incredible study. I’ve taken thorough notes from the daily lessons – which came in really handy yesterday, btw – and The Lord will use those truths to guide me/us as we walk ahead.

~And lots of other little things or little “thoughts” that the Lord has zipped through my heart and mind lately… all of which didn’t make sense until yesterday.

Just this past Wednesday night, I was looking around our house with those clean, smooth, freshly painted empty walls and I realized that I donā€™t have a decorating ā€œpoint of viewā€ anymore. I know what I like, but have been trying to find a balance between what I like, what I have, and the need to stay on the ā€œneutralā€ side of dĆ©cor so that the house will be easy to stage to sell. Iā€™ve been praying about it, and as of yet, have had no general direction. Iā€™ve only had specific direction for the next step of what needs to be done.

As I was pondering all of this on Wednesday, I told my husband that the walls in our house represent how I feel about my life right now. With the closure of so many things, Iā€™m open and ready for all kinds of possibilities, but as of yet, donā€™t have any direction except for the next present step. I had no idea how very true that statement would turn out to be. Just two days later, all four of the Walkers find ourselves just like these wallsā€¦ Ready for something ā€“ but not sure just what that is.

What I am sure of is that this is now the time in our lives where the rubber meets the road. Itā€™s the time for us to flesh out what we study and believe and speak of on a daily basis. Itā€™s where our faith in God as our Provider and Leader will be put in action.

At this point, we have no idea what we will do or where we will go. But we do know that the Lord is well aware of our situation, prepared us beforehand, has plans for our good and His glory, that He will lead us and provide for us as we obey Him keep our (tear-swollen) eyes fixed on Him.

Weā€™re starting a family journal about this journey ā€“ where each one of us can write what weā€™ve seen the Lord do as we wait upon and trust in Him. You may be sick of hearing about this journey by the time itā€™s doneā€¦ but weā€™re going to be Smelling a lot of Coffee around here ā€“ seeking the ā€œaroma of the knowledge of Christ in every placeā€. We sure would appreciate your prayers as the Lord brings us to your minds.

I look up to the mountainsā€”
does my help come from there?

My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth!

He will not let you stumble;
the one who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.

The LORD himself watches over you!
The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.

The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night.

The LORD keeps you from all harm
and watches over your life.

The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.

Psalm 121 (NLT)

God’s timing is perfect, and we’re so thankful that this is the cup God has chosen for us. This is just the loss of a job – not the loss of a loved one.

I pray for every one of you that read Smelling Coffee, and I realize that many of you are on this same “faith walk” with us. Let’s pray for each other… because one of these days, we’ll all have incredible testimonies of what God has done and is doing in and through these situations.

Thank you, friendsā€¦ May the Lord keep watch over you as you come and go, and wait upon Him, too.

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