What's In Your Hand?

 This single sentence stopped me cold today as I read.

“What is that in your hand?” Exodus4:2

There Moses was, minding his own business and caring for the flock. Just a guy, his staff, and a flock of sheep.

Suddenly, God Himself shows up and calls Moses to do something out of the ordinary.

Moses doubts himself and his ability to do what God’s asking. God replies by asking “what’s in your hand?”

I can imagine Moses’s indifferent shrug as he holds out the ordinary staff that he’s carried every day for years.

God takes that simple thing and adds His miraculous to it.

How often do we sense that God is asking something of us, and we reply with “sure as soon as you put something amazing on me, I’ll get right to work”

We wait for everything to look perfect. We wait for the perfect set up. We wait for our skills and our tools to look more incredible than anything anyone else has.

This is how we will know that we are gifted, right?… When all the earthly and human signs point toward guaranteed greatness.

But that’s not how it worked for Moses. God did not give him a special robe. He did not give him a new and upgraded embellished staff. He did not put Moses in a place of authority in Egypt.

By all outward signs, it did not look like a good opportunity for Moses to be successful.

He was still just a guy holding that ordinary staff.

Have you been waiting?

Have you been waiting for the perfect set up? The perfect opportunity? For all circumstances to be aligned perfectly for your best chance at success?

Have you been waiting for your ordinary life and skills to look and feel extraordinary before you take your next step?

I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Walking by faith is the opposite of walking by sight.

We are called to step out and do what God asks us to do well before it seems like a good idea by human standards.

So friend, what is in your hand today?

I encourage you to use the ordinary things of your life in the way that God is asking you to, and to count on Him to add His miraculous power to it for His Glory.

Say “yes”… Knowing full well that you are 100% dependent on God showing up

Say “yes“ to that impossible looking opportunity

Take a step out onto the water

Count on God to drop mana from the sky

Shout at the walls and expect them to fall

Go into battle frighteningly outnumbered

Expect God to fulfill every single promise He’s made

When we see God as faithful and generous, He sees us as full of faith and He is honored

All things…ALL… are possible with Him

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Time to Cut the Cord

 

During my time with the the Lord today, I heard clearly , “IT’S TIME TO CUT THE CORD” When a baby is born, they are still attached to their life in the womb via the umbilical cord. There comes a time that the cord stops pulsing with blood and it turns white. It’s value and use is finished. And then the cord is cut and the child is entirely free of its pre-birth life. All that’s left is the healing where the cord once was…and growth. As Christians, we are born again, but we can still be “attached” to our old way of living. Old ways of being, old ways of relationship, old ways of protection, old ways of provision. We hesitate to “cut the cord“ because for a little while at least, it seems that the cord is still pulsing with valuable and important resources. But there comes a time when it’s not only healthy and safe, but necessary… to cut the cord once and for all. This is certainly a personal word for me right now, and maybe it is for you too. Maybe you’re sensing a change of season for your life, and it’s feeling a little uncertain and scary to cut free of the old one. I want to lovingly and gently encourage you to spend time with the Lord and ask him if there’s anything that needs to be cut free so that you can move into the new. “Cutting” might sound scary or painful, but he is precise and utterly gentle. You can trust yourself to him

I also believe that this is a word for the broader church, which is also entering into a new season of life. The old ways we are accustomed to and comfortable with will not only not serve us any longer, but they will become a hindrance to the newness that the Lord is calling us into. Will we allow Jesus to be Lord of his church even if it makes us a little uncomfortable sometimes? Will we allow him to prune and shape the church according to his pleasures instead of according to our comfort and preferences? Will we surrender to his plan, or will we hold tight to our beloved traditions and programs? Cut the cord, Lord. Cut me free of anything that isn’t of you. Cut away any old thing that you do not want me to depend on any longer. Cut away my good to make room for your great.

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12 Simple Steps to Render and Store Tallow

If you're a crunchy girl, you know that tallow is having a moment lately.

Personally, I use tallow to create skincare products (skin and lip balms, soap, etc) to replace toxic chemical laden products from the store.  My friends and I love it :-)

But, boy, I've learned the hard way how NOT to render and store tallow!  I've seen burning, crumbling, and molding.  It's a serious disappointment to spend time and money to render and store tallow...only to have to throw it in the trash!

I'm sharing my simple process here in the hopes that it will help someone avoid my mistakes.  Let's jump in.







My process:

1.  Source your tallow.  It's as simple as calling a local butcher.  You want to ask for "Leaf fat from around the kidney".  Tallow is NOT "trimmings", or fat you'd cut from a roast or steak. Tallow is a solid white (or cream) color chunk of fat from a specific location in the cow.  Some butchers refer to it as suet.  Just make sure to clarify exactly what you're looking for.  If they're willing to grind or chop it for you, that will make your life MUCH easier!

2.  Trim (if you want).  Word of warning...when you get tallow from the butcher (especially if it's not ground or chopped), it's not much to look at.  You might see connective tissue or meat attached to it.  That's normal.  You can simply trim that stuff off and toss it.  Personally, I do not trim unless there's a huge amount of meat.  I use the "waste" product from rendered tallow and I turn it into suet cakes for the bird feeders.  

3.  Melt with water (wet render).  Notice I said MELT, not cook! Using too high a temp is a great way to produce really smelly tallow.  You want to melt on a low temp, not cook it.   I place the tallow in a roaster or crock pot, and fill the vessel about 1/2 way up with water after adding the tallow.  I also like to add a bit of salt to help draw out any water soluble impurities/odors. I cook at about 200 degrees F overnight.

Salt is not required, and there's lots of debate about it.  A quick google research will give you the info you need to decide if you want to use salt.  

To salt or not?  I use salt because removing as much of the odor as possible is important to me.  The first time I rendered, I didn't use salt...the end product smelled so beefy that I was afraid the neighborhood dogs would attack me if I left the house haha!  Totally your call.  If you have lots of great reasons to NOT salt, that's just fine.  I'm not here to debate...just to share what's worked for me :-)

4.  De-Chunk.  This is an official term ;-)  This is just for those of you who do NOT have ground or fine-chopped tallow like me.  Even after it's fully melted, some of the fat will be bound up in the rest of the tissues - I don't want to let it go to waste!  You basically want to crush as many chunks as possible to release the fat.  I've used in immersion blender, a food processor, and a good old fashioned potato masher.  You can also dump it in a fine mesh strainer and press it against the mesh with a spoon/spatula to release the fat (my favorite method).

5.  Strain.  Now that your tallow has been melted and de-chunked, it's time to pour the whole water and tallow (and salt) mixture into a big bowl.  Let the mixture cool to a temp that is still warm enough to be melty, but cool enough to be comfortable to touch. Place a big pasta strainer in a big mixing bowl, and drape some cheesecloth over the strainer.  Pour the mixture into the cheesecloth. Twist and squeeze the cheesecloth to release as much fat as you can.

Discard the stuff caught by the cheesecloth if you'd like (in the trash, NOT down the drain). Or, you can keep it and let it cool in a small baking dish.  Once cooled, pop it out, and roll it in birdseed.  The birds LOVE it!

6.  Refrigerate overnight or until a hard "puck" of tallow forms at the top, and the water puddles at the bottom.

7.  Remove the fat layer from the bowl, and discard the water at the bottom.  You'll see some impurities on the surface of the tallow (especially on the bottom).  Use a knife or bench scraper to scrape it away and discard.  It's ok for some of the impurities to be stuck in the tallow - it'll be filtered out with more rendering and straining.

   

8.  Repeat steps 3,5, & 6 until the water in the bottom of the bowl is mostly clear and odor-free.  At this point, you have removed most of the impurities from the tallow.  It should have a generally uniform color and very faint odor if any.

**Change your cooling basin at this point - instead of a big deep mixing bowl, use several smaller shallow containers.  I use plastic containers with lids to allow me to stack them in the fridge.

(note the yellow color of this nearly finished tallow - this is normal!  Finished color will vary from pure white to cream or yellow depending on the animal's diet)

**The reason for switching to shallow containers, it to allow any remaining impurities and/or salt to make it's way out of the fat and into the water.  Thinner layers of fat will be less likely to have pockets of stuff you don't want...they can get trapped in the larger, thicker pucks of fat.




9.  Remove the salt.  If you used salt in your rendering process, it's important to do a couple more wet renders WITHOUT the salt.  The water will find any salt that's trapped, and will bind to it.  As you do wet renders without salt, you'll notice the water in the bowl under the puck will become less and less cloudy....that cloudiness is the salt being pulled off. I wet render as many times as it takes for the water to be clear.

10.  Melt without water (dry render).  And now it's time to remove any remaining water from your tallow.  This part is CRUCIAL for long term storage (either on a shelf, in a fridge/freezer, or in a product) because trapped water will cause mold. Melt the tallow down without adding any water or salt.  Once it's fully melted, pour no more than 1.5 inches deep in your shallow containers.

11.  Refrigerate until solid.  Remove the thin pucks of tallow from the containers, and dry thoroughly with paper towel.  At this point, the tallow should be very firm.  If you break it or cut it, it should have a "snap" to it.  

12.  Store in a way that will preserve it well. This is where I've lost so much good tallow!  Do NOT store in a mason jar.  All it takes is a single drop of water to find it's way into that closed jar, and mold takes hold.

How I store it: I take my dried pucks and wrap them in parchment paper.  Then place several wrapped pucks in a zipper bag along with a piece of paper towel (which will grab any moisture).  The whole bag goes into a freezer for long term storage.  Not only does the freezer pull any moisture out, but it also prevents spoilage.   


Congrats!  You did it!  You now have pure tallow to use in cooking or in skincare products.  Pro tip:  I typically keep some set aside in my fridge for popping my popcorn ;-) 

Enjoy! 

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If Something Can Steal Your Joy (PART 2)

 

Typically, all I need to do to get the incessant thoughts running through my mind to stop is to write it out. That's what I did yesterday...yet...here we are haha!


I shared yesterday about my journey the last 18 months and how it became clear to me that the Lord had been scrubbing my life and heart clean of idols.  I didn't really think about those things as idols until I heard the quote "If something can steal your joy, it's become an idol".

SO many things...good things, even!...had become "idols" based on that quote's reasoning.  My joy was unhealthily rooted in things other than the Lord, which left me tossing from joy to despair based on life's circumstances.  


But in my sharing the way I did yesterday, did I leave people feeling dread, fear, or worse...did I leave people thinking that God is cruel or unfeeling?  I want to clear that up right this minute!


The heart of God is kind, gentle, and tender.  AND He's fierce in His love and devotion to His children.  The Bible even describes Him as a jealous God. (Exodus 20:4-5)  In fact, this section of scripture is speaking specifically about idol worship!


We have a confused way of thinking of jealousy.  In our culture, we often confuse holy jealousy with mere coveting.  God is not wringing His hands wishing He had something someone else has (coveting).  "Jealousy" in this passage refers to a passionate zeal.  Uncompromising.  Unwilling to share what belongs to Him.

Bottom line - He takes His relationship with us VERY seriously.  He is in covenant with His people.  It's an emotional and legal agreement that He sealed with His own blood - that's how serious it is to Him!

"Jealousy" as we often use the word gives the impression of pettiness or silliness.  There is nothing petty or silly about this though.


Instead, this is like a husband's protective and passionate heart for his precious bride.  Do we criticize a man for loving his wife and not wanting her affections to be for another?  Of course not!  Devotion and single-mindedness to a spouse is beautiful and holy.  In fact, earthy marriage is meant to be a reflection of God and His bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:32).



THAT is the kind of jealousy we're talking about here.  



So did "God hurt me" because of the idolatry in my life?

I endured some pain, yes.  But it was MY actions that caused the pain, not God's.  



An illustration:  Think of a rough piece of wood.  A child wants to know how it feels, so they reach out their hand to feel it's texture.  Their loving parent says, "Watch out!  That will leave you with slivers of wood in your hand!"...yet the curious child runs their hand along the wood anyway.

Big surprise...a hand full of slivers is the result.

The loving parent carefully and gently pulls the slivers out to stop the pain and to avoid infection.  But the process of pulling them is painful in itself!

So...is the parent to blame here?  Did the parent cause the suffering?  The parent did what was necessary to protect the long term health of the child, and it was a painful process.  But the root cause of the overall suffering was the child being out of order (disobedient).




It's similar in my idolatry lesson... 

The process for removing the "slivers" was necessary for my long term overall health, and most importantly, for my relationship with the Lord.  And the process stung a bit.



But the reason the slivers were there were all on me.  Not that I willfully disobeyed...I was just way too "self" focused....what made sense to me?  What was logical?  What made the human financial math work? What were other humans saying?



The Kingdom of God is not logic and mathematical and based on man's thoughts or words.



Often times, the Kingdom seems backwards and upside down.  This makes me think of the scripture about "seeing in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12).  Maybe it's ACTUALLY and LITERALLY like we're looking in a dim mirror...maybe that wasn't a figure of speech at all!  Maybe the TRUTH is literally backwards from what I'm seeing, just like my reflection in a mirror is backward from what others see when they see me "face to face" (1 Cor 13:12 again).

So we're asked to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7)

We sometimes think of living by faith as difficult because (by definition) we can't SEE what's going on, and we're taught early that "seeing is believing".  But could it be that this is a very practical way of instructing us since everything "by sight" is actually backwards?


Walking by sight will lead us the wrong way nearly every single time.  We are instructed to follow the leading of the Lord by faith...to live in a way where we know and trust Him so much, that we simply do and go whatever and wherever He leads. (Proverbs 16:9)

This is the process of "Sanctification" (1 Thes 5:23, John 17:17).  I was saved when I surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus for my life...but I've been a work in progress ever since.  We're called to grow to be more like Jesus every day (sanctification)...and sometimes the process means that some deeply rooted stuff needs to be pulled, pruned, and unlearned.  The more deeply attached I am to the unhealthy stuff, the more it stings to have it pruned.



This is what death to self looks like. (John 12:24)



This is what picking up a cross and dying for God's higher purpose looks like. (Luke 9:23)



And I'm all in.



I'm all in because the Lord has nurtured me into a more patient, trusting, peaceful, and joyful woman after having some of the junk pruned.  Not despite the process...BECAUSE of the process.  He is gentle and kind and patient.



And I'm all in because I love Him with my whole heart.



I want Him to find in me a devoted, committed, passionately in love bride.  I want Him to be honored by my trust in Him.  I want my life to reflect His goodness so that others who He loves will trust Him too.  I want His Kingdom to grow and for His precious blood to receive all that was purchased on that cross.



Rest easy, friends.  We don't have to fear our good Father.  Even in the challenging seasons, He is there and He is taking good care of us.

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If Something Can Steal Your Joy...

 

This quote from yesterday's sermon was like a gut-punch that just keeps sticking with me: "If something can steal your joy, it's become an idol in your life".

I literally gasped when he spoke the words.

All at once, I had a crystal clear picture of what the Lord's been doing in my life this past year. 

He's been stripping me of idols!

Scenes from the last 18 months play through my mind like a movie:

... a business I'd built for 14 years: just **poof** gone

... that business was our family's bread and butter, and we'd just signed on a new house 

...  my health went bonkers - a torn meniscus in each knee, hormones going crazy, and kidney stones so big they had to be surgically removed. Weariness, exhaustion, and so so SO much physical pain.

... a couple relationships that I was heavily invested in...my heart was WAY out there trusting some people...and it came crashing down in hurt and disappointment

... plans and promises that seemed like a sure thing - stuff I was looking forward to, dreaming about, and feeling wildly excited about...wound up being a dead end that left me feeling directionless, purposeless, and discarded..."demoted" is a word I kept thinking about in that tough season of disappointment

I suffered with times of fear and grief

But I also felt sincere and abiding joy.  My husband even commented that the "Daiquiri from a few years ago would never have walked through the last 18 months the way you did".   This is only because the Lord Himself walked me through it


Along the way, the Lord was faithful to be whispering in my ear and meeting with me in worship.

"Forgive", He whispered


I chose to be relentless about forgiveness because, well, He said so...and also because I know how dangerous it can be when forgiveness turns into bitterness.  Even so, a root of bitterness took hold... So the Lord delivered me from it like only He can.  

"Trust in Me instead of physicians", He instructed
(2 Chronicles 16:12)

So I learned to speak His Word over the "diagnosis" and "prognosis" from the doctor.  As I vocalized the promise of healing for my body roughly 100 times a day, the finished work of the Cross was applied to my throbbing knees, and I was healed.

My kidneys...well that was a lesson learned the hard way for me.  I listened to the doctor and believed every word she said about the pain I was in for if I didn't have surgery.  I got scared, and booked the surgery immediately.  

As I writhed in pain the night of surgery, no pain medicine seemed to touch the searing pain in my body.  


I cried out to Him, "Where are you?!  Please help!"


"Who said you needed surgery?" was His reply


All at once, I realized I'd never even asked Him about surgery for my kidneys!  I trusted Him for my knees, saw Him work a miracle, and then just jumped right back to trusting the doctor!


I'm not against medical intervention - God gives us doctors to help us.  But HE is the GREAT PHYSICIAN...He is the One who is our "primary provider".  And with my kidneys, I didn't so much as get His opinion.  


I apologized, and His grace and mercy and peace flooded me.  Lesson learned!


"Remember Who I Am",  He whispered as I received the heart-pounding news that my business was just dissolved.


The budgetary math was absolutely not adding up.  The payments FAR outweigh(ed) the income.


Panic threatened to overtake me - as my thoughts spiraled, He met me there again and said more loudly, "Remember Who I Am".

As I grieved and cried one day, I asked the Lord what was happening.  

"Pruning", He replied


"Can I be so bold as to ask what exactly you're pruning?", I asked


"I'm pruning you of Self-Sufficiency", He whispered


And oh, how those pruning shears stung!


The bottom line...I am not provider or planner in my life. He is.


He is the keeper of time, resources, and keys to the doors.  Not me.


As a "strong and independent" business woman, I was relying on my own wits.  My own wisdom.  My own "make it happen" abilities.


People
Plans
Promises (from humans)
Resources
Health


These are some of the areas of my life I was finding joy in...and when they left, broke, changed, and disappointed...my joy was affected.


The way of the world teaches us that all these things are fine and good....important, even.


And when they're rooted in Christ, the ARE good.


But when they're so important to me that they have the power of joy and/or despair over me...that's a signal that they've taken on a life of their own.


It's a signal that I've placed those things on the throne in my life that is reserved ONLY for the King.


"If something can steal your joy, it's become an idol".  May it never be so again!


Thank you, Lord...for clearing the throne room of my heart of anything I'd valued or trusted above you.  Thank you for your gentle and swift hand in the pruning and shaping...and for being so near to hold and carry me through the painful parts.  Thank you for the precious people in my life.  Thank you for the plans you have for me.  Thank you for the way you take such beautiful and supernatural care of me.  Thank you for YOUR promises.  Let your ways be obvious in my life...to your glory and honor forever!  

 

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