Beyond the Highlights

My blog has been dormant for the past few months because I was trying to keep a big secret until I could tell everyone in person. The secret (although not easy to hide these days) is that I am pregnant!

Its been quite a journey thus far. At first I wasn't even sure if this was the right time to start a family. Was I ready to be a mom? Did I want to take on the extra responsibility? What about my cute little two door hatchback?

It all started about 9 months ago with prayer. I figured that since God knew everything, I'd ask Him to enlighten me on the aforementioned questions. Oh did he enlighten me! Slowly but surely the next 3 months were spent unfolding the areas of my subconscious that were holding me back from moving on to the next stage in my life. And for me, these things weren't superficial at all. I am well aware that I've partied with the best of 'em, traveled the world, and all the "ducks," so to speak, were queued up but there were some things holding me back. These were things I didn't even think were related to motherhood. That's how I know without a doubt that it was God that tackled these issues with me...because He is the only one that knows what goes on in the depths of my brain: beyond the cute highlights, below the work deadlines, and far from my emotions I had issues! Issues that only a loving God could uncover, deal with, and heal me from. Once we got through all that junk I was left with glad anticipation. I got the answers to my questions and I started to feel peace and excitement about moving on. Less than a month later, Husband and I found out that I was pregnant.

I believe there's a lot of us that have things that need to be dealt with but most of the time there's no dealing ---they're just neatly tucked away in the depths of our psyche. We may have forgotten them or didn't even know they exist. But they're there and they're at the root of our insecurities. I'd love to agree with the saying that "time heals all" but what I think God wanted to do with me was uncover those things so then He could heal all and build me up to know, without a doubt, that the next stage of my life was approaching, I was ready for it, and that it was going to be good.

When life gives you peaches, make a Cobbler

Yesterday I made the most decadent peach cobbler. I was nervous because the peaches weren't as sweet as I would have liked but in a sugar infused cobbler, their tartness balanced out the sweet cake quite well. Why was I making peach cobbler from scratch you ask? Well that's a story.

Husband and I bought the most beautiful home a few years ago fully equipped with stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors and an ORCHARD in the back yard. Husband diligently waters the orchard and prunes it but year after year we are over inundated with fruit. My role in the fruit harvest up until now has been to pick the occasional lemon for tea and shovel the extra fruit that had fallen into the garbage can. At first I was not pleased with my new chore. I'd growl as I shoveled the fruit week after week and then it hit me. Like the Israelites in the desert complaining about the boring manna; I was complaining about my manna--the orchard. Two types of people that were provided for by grace and complained because it wasn't absolutely ideal.

I recall that the Israelites were lost for 40 years in the desert for a number of reasons but I bet one was that they lost gratefulness for their manna. I'd rather not be lost in my proverbial desert so I chose to be grateful and thankful for all my manna and start putting it to good use. As it turns out there are a lot of ways to use a lot of fruit. I started giving it to friends and coworkers, using it for decoration, some suggested to use the lemons for cleaning, and I even made lemonade with my lemons...

This brings me to my cobbler: (found on All Recipes)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 (16 ounce) can sliced peaches
• 1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Pour butter into a shallow 2-qt. baking dish; set aside. Drain peaches, reserving 1/4 cup juice. In a saucepan, bring the peaches and juice just to a boil. Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup sugar, flour, milk, baking powder and salt; mix well. Pour over butter in baking dish. Spoon hot peaches over batter. Sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes or until cake tests done. Serve warm.