This is me by Jean Adams : Hope on Interstate 45

This is me by Jean Adams : Hope on Interstate 45: Highway I witnessed the scariest, craziest, most bizarre & saddest thing ever this past Sunday! We were on I45 South heading to se...

Hope on Interstate 45

Highway

I witnessed the scariest, craziest, most bizarre & saddest thing ever this past Sunday! We were on I45 South heading to see our daughter and granddaughter when I spotted a person on the highway. I assumed their car had broken down, so I was pumping my brakes to slow down and to alert traffic behind me. I then saw her, a young woman walk in to the lane that I am in. Traffic came to a stop, for the most part. The car in front of me went in the lane to my left. I was in the 2nd lane from the left of  4 lanes heading south. Then she did the craziest, scariest thing, she laid down on the concrete in front of me, on the highway.
SHE LAID DOWN ON THE HIGHWAY! I can only assume that it was an attempt at suicide. Then almost supernaturally a police vehicle arrived-he pulled that SUV across the lane sideways, got out calmly and got a hold of her- (She got up and tried to walk away when she saw the cop), he arrested her and we slowly went around them and on our way. I was so stunned! So shocked, that it took me a few minutes for my brain to absorb what I had just witnessed.
We began to pray for her and thank GOD that HE saved her from death on 8-11-19! Thinking GOD must have big plans for her life!  The traffic on I45 is normally going 60-75 MPH . Yet we all had ample time to slow down and stop, traffic was steady, not thick but pretty busy on a Sunday afternoon. A police officer arrived in miraculous time to take care of her and the situation (we prayed for him too). Surely GOD has a plan and a purpose for saving her. Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the LORD. "Plans to prosper you & not to harm you, plans to give you hope & a future."
This entire scene has given me so much hope! Hope that HE does care for us! Even when we don't care for ourselves! Hope that HE will watch over my daughters who are young women that have been prayed over since day one! Hope that HE is ever present in our hour of need. I hope this story give you hope in whatever you are going through today, this week, this month, this year, this season! And if you think of it, say a prayer for the I45 young woman. GOD knows her name.
Love and blessings~Jean

Waiting

Short & sweet-rely on the Lord. Do not rush to your own actions or panic when seasons of life take a turn for the worse. Seek the Lord, & wait on Him. He is good & awesome & for us. The "turns for the worse" may last days or years. No matter what, know this, God knows & He is prepared for everything you are going through. Let Him be your refuge & your rock, He is forever faithful. See Psalm 27:14 Wait for The LORD...

The Sun will shine again

I took this picture on Sunday. It was such a beautiful day. Hard to believe that this same beautiful sky was dumping buckets of rain 24 hours prior ⛈️ A good reminder that no matter what your circumstances might look like right now, it might be pouring seeming impossibilities in your world, but hang on! Hold on to Hope. God has a plan and a purpose. The sun will shine again🌞. You will get to the other side of your problems. Trust GOD, HE is faithful.

More for the menu plan book

Hi! It's me again. I gotta share about a couple of things I added to our menu this week. Yesterday, I made chicken gnocchi soup that rivaled Olive Garden's recipe! It's been cold here in the South, ya I know, hush, I am not under several inches of non stop snow like my friends and family in the North, but it was a good soup day here, rainy and 40 degrees is yucky any where! Today (I have already done the cooking for this evening as we will try to get to an event at church), I made chicken egg roll bowls. SO good! 

Here's the scoop, I bought 1 package of ground chicken to make the 2 meals mentioned. Bringing the cost for the meat for each meal to about $2.00.  I splurged on the gnocchi and bought the organic stuff found in the refrigerator section of the store. So glad I did! It was much better than the dry stuff on the shelf! 

Brown 1/2 of the meat for the soup, adding just a 1/2-1 Tbs of olive oil, plus 1 tbs butter, (the real stuff),  to the pan so the ground chicken doesn't stick and burn. Stir in about 1/2 cup of diced onion, 1/2 tsp minced garlic, Italian seasoning, and Mrs. dash. Once that is browned up add 1/4 cup rice flour, coat that by stirring well. Stir in 1 carton of chicken broth, & 1/4 cup of water, add slowly. bring that to a simmer, add in about 8 sliced up mushrooms and 1/2 pkg of chopped frozen spinach. Bring to a boil. Stir in gnocchi. Bring back to a soft boil, stir in 1 cup 1/2 & 1/2 or whole milk.  Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes letting the flavors all assimilate. Enjoy with hearty bread and grape juice. Serves 4. 

The Egg Roll Bowls:

Brown the rest of the ground chicken, with 1/2 Tbs. olive oil, and spices. I use Garlic Mrs. Dash, a scant amount of Spicy Mrs. Dash. Chop/slice half a head of cabbage, green onions, and 1 carrot, I also added 1 orange salad pepper, & 6-8 sliced mushrooms.  (You could use a bag of pre-chopped coleslaw). Stir all into browned meat along with 1/4 tsp minced garlic or more if you want. Let cabbage cook down for 3-5 minutes, add 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce, stir and heat thoroughly, cook till cabbage is tender. Serve over cooked rice and enjoy!  (Serves 4 with rice). 

I hate to get in a rut with the same old food. Bon Apetit`

 

Menu Planning & how it saved my sanity

Menu planning sounds a bit boring, but it has saved my sanity and saved us a lot of money! I would rather have pedicure $ any day! I used to stand in front of the freezer door or refrigerator at around 4 pm everyday and wonder what was going to be for supper. Usually, I'd think "oh this would be good, but no time for thawing that out", or "oh that would  be good, but I am missing an ingredient". Now, I try to sit down and notate what meat I have in the freezer and plan accordingly. I like to buy meat when it is on sale and then freeze it for meals as needed. So, here's a 2 week plan that worked well for me. I only had to go to the store for some of the fresh vegetables. We eat a lot of chicken (I don't eat beef).

Monday
Left overs from the weekend
A large green salad

Tuesday
Chicken burritos, using chicken tenders
brown those up in a skillet with onion and spices
Refried beans from can
Salsa

Wednesday
BBQ Chicken - cooked in crockpot
5 tenders or 2 breast pieces, bbq sauce.
Coleslaw (homemade, but I use the bag of pre-cut cabbage)
Chips

Thursday
Pork Tenderloin (cook in crock pot)
Potatoes, carrots and onions

Friday
Salmon
rice (I season my own)
Green and yellow bean medley with carrot chunks (frozen)

Weekends are a free pass here, we usually eat late breakfast and then a mid day something out.

Monday
Chicken bowls
Cook chicken in crock pot (bought pre-seasoned fajita chicken)
Black beans, rice, salsa. Garnish with avocado if on hand.

Tuesday
Spaghetti. using Italian sausage cut into chunks
Canned sauce doctored up, add an extra can of diced tomatoes, lots of Italian seasoning and garlic.
Pasta

Wednesday
Left overs + large salad

Thursday
Soup
Chicken, vegetables-onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms. Seasoning.

Friday
Chicken cordon blue (my grocery store makes and sells these)
garlic mashed cauliflower (frozen)
couscous or rice.

Extra meal if needed for the weekend
Black beans and rice, using Jimmy Dean sausage, black beans, Rotel and rice.

FURTHER

 I have been contemplating this word furtherance, since Joy brought it up at the end of our prayer time on Tuesday.

  To go deeper, to go further. When talking about going further with God, with Godly things, what does that mean.

  Then I read in a devotional book that I am reading this year (2019), called Jesus & Coffee, he said this... "If you want God's best for you, you will have to: Let go of the old & who you used to be, so that you can embrace the new & who God wants you to be." 

  So in order to go further, we (I) have to let go of the past & embrace what God has for me/us. Leave the past behind. Don't get trapped in it. Be willing to say to God, it is Yours. I give it to you, free me from it so I can embrace the new that You have for me. So that I can have a furtherance with You, going deeper. Trusting Him. 

   He is strong & able & faithful & good. He has blessings for us.   Abundance for us. Deeper things for us. We have to trust HIM & honor HIM with our faith. Have faith to go further. So the whole honor thing from last week is a building block onto this weeks word, furtherance. Synonymous to furtherance is: promotion, advancement, improvement, development, betterment, acceleration, encouragement,  endorsement. The meaning of furtherance is an advancement of..." But I love that one of it's synonyms is encouragement! We don't have to fear furtherance. GOD will encourage us as we go, as we advance, HE will not leave us alone, HE will encourage us 

along the way! That is comforting good news. 

  Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things that are above, not on things   that  are on this Earth.

  Isaiah 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you,   because he trusts in You.

  Romans 12:1-2 Renew your mind. The Message version says it this   way: So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.   You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

  Have faith, trust God, go further.