Like An Anchor

Free In Christ

9 November, 2013

I didn’t realize until I saw this post still in drafts that there wasn’t a Saturday post last week. Oops. Well, here it is now.

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free …

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:31-32, 34-36)

What happens once we are made free from sin? Some people (especially those in Western cultures, I suspect) tend to think of freedom as license to do whatever they want. This is not what is meant by the freedom that we are given in Christ.

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (Rom. 6:18)

The Bible reveals that we have only two options: service to sin or service to God. Though we are “not under law but under grace,” that does not give us license to disobey. Under the New Covenant, God’s commandments are still in effect, and He requires obedience from those who love Him (John 14:15, 21).

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? (Rom. 6:15-17)

This does not mean we can earn eternal life by obedience — it is a free gift from God (Rom. 6:23). However, we can show by disobedient actions that we refuse to accept His gift. When we do that, it’s as if someone pulled us from a burning building and said, “Don’t go back in there,” and instead of obeying we marched right back inside because we thought the heat felt good.

Once we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, we have to respond by walking not “according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). We will surely slip and fall, but we have to stop willfully sinning and make a genuine effort to change and obey. The habit of our life has to become Christ-imitating instead of sinful.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men — as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. (1 Pet. 2:15-16)
Speedy Brownies

6 November, 2013

This is not my favorite brownie recipe, but it is by far the easiest to make. Dump all the ingredients in one bowl, mix, pour in a pan, sprinkle with nuts or chocolate chips, and bake. That’s it. You don’t even have to wait for butter to soften, since they take oil.

Speedy Brownies

all the ingredients in one bowl

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2 cups sugar

1 cup white, unbleached flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup baking cocoa

½ teaspoons salt

5 eggs

right before baking, and right after baking

1 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

walnuts and/or chocolate chips

Combine first seven in gradients in a large bowl and beat until smooth. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in baking pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and/or walnuts. Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

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It’s NaNoWriMo Time!

4 November, 2013

National Novel Writing Month is well underway, and I am happy to report I have not yet fallen behind. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in a single month (which requires 1,667 words per day). I completed NaNoWriMo in 2011 while taking a full class load, working part time, and writing my undergraduate research thesis, so this year can’t be any harder, right?

This year, I very cleverly decided to begin NaNoWriMo by going to a church lock-in over the weekend. I frantically wrote 3,400 words on Friday, and wrote another 1,383 on the drive home before my laptop battery died (and another 1,100 before I went to bed). I was surprised how much I could write after only 3 hours of sleep (maybe 4 if you count the nap in the car). I’m not going back to re-read for quality until after November is done, but the quantity part I was able to manage.

If you’re interested in the story I’m writing, you can look me up on the NaNo website under the name ‘linnon.am.meleth.vin’, or check out my writing blog under the pseudonym Maris McKay, where I’ve been writing about outlining my NaNo novel and drawing maps for the new fantasy world.
Sweet Potato Casserole

30 October, 2013

our sweet potato harvest

We grew sweet potatoes in the garden for the first time this year. I wasn’t quite prepared for how deep and far away from the base of the plant they grow — we cut several in half with the spade and potato fork. My brother started excavating them with his hands, and he proved to be the most successful at locating sweet potatoes. Per instructions we found online, we let the potatoes sit for about a week before using them.

This casserole was the result of experiments combining several recipes last year. It cooked up splendidly with these new sweet potatoes, and I decided to post this finished version. If you use enough sweet potatoes, it has a very nice not-at-all-soupy texture.

Sweet Potato Casserole

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Filling

4 or 5 medium sweet potatoes

3/4 cup white sugar

3 eggs, beaten

3/4 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons butter, softened

3/4 cup milk

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Peal and chop sweet potatoes into 1- to 1.5-inch chunks, enough to fill a 2.5-quart sauce pan. Add water fill pan about halfway. Cook over medium-high heat until tender. Drain.

Mash sweet potatoes in a large bowl. Add remainder of the filling ingredients and beat until smooth with electric mixer. Transfer to a 13x9x2-inch baking dish.

In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and flour. Cut in the butter until the mixture is coarse. Stir in the pecans. Sprinkle the mixture over the sweet potato filling.

Bake at 325°F for 30 minutes, or until the topping is lightly brown. Serve warm.

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A Completely Subjective Book List

28 October, 2013

Sometimes I like reading posts titled things like “Books Every Family Should Have In Their Library,” “Best YA Books of All Time,” and “Top 100 Fantasy Books Ever.” While I’ll occasionally get an idea for a new book to read, I usually end up checking to see if they’ve “rightly” included any books I like or “wrongly” included books I hate. One thing that always amuses me, at least slightly, is how all these lists propose to be good for every family or include all the best books even though it’s clear all such lists are completely subjective.

For this list, I’m not even going to try to be objective or include all the best books. This is an unabashed list of my favorite books, which I irrationally think everyone should read and enjoy just as much as I do. They aren’t even organized alphabetically — just whichever popped into my head first.

My “Must Read” Books

Mara: Daughter of the Nile

My mother gave me Mara, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, when studying ancient Egypt in elementary school and I’ve read it pretty much every year since. It has everything a book needs — strong characters, good writing, and intriguing plot. On top of the admirable writing is danger, mystery, and romance. Spies! Double agents! Political intrigue! It also features the most romantic (possibly the only romantic) attempted murder in literary history. If I’m forced to choose just one favorite book, this is the one I pick.

Ender’s Game

Moving from one of my oldest favorites to one of the newest. I first read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card at the end of last year. It’s brilliant. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t spend much more time telling you how wonderful this book is, especially the characters. I cried buckets of tears in the last chapter.

The Blue Sword

Written by Robin McKinley, this may very well be my favorite fantasy book. Like Mara, The Blue Sword features a strong female protagonist and an irresistible hero (let me just say Corlath is the only person who I wouldn’t mind being abducted by [this statement will make sense if you read the book]). McKinley’s world building, characters, and story are excellent. My only quibble with this story is that, like many of her books, it doesn’t really end. It’s as if the author wasn’t sure how to end the story, so she slapped an epilog on and called it the last chapter. Perhaps I should just say that is part of the book’s irresistible charm.

Pride and Prejudice

I know it’s a terribly predictable title to include — couldn’t I have at least chosen one of Jane Austen’s lesser-known works? But I’ve read all six of Austen’s major novels at least once (some two or three times), and Pride and Prejudice remains my favorite. Maybe it’s the fact that people type Lizzie Bennet as an INFJ (which I’m not entirely convinced of, but it would explain why I identify with her so much). Perhaps it’s because Mr. Darcy is my favorite of Austen’s men. Whatever it is, Pride and Prejudice is firmly on my recommended reading list.

Fairy Tales

Not a single book, but it would take to long to list them all separately. I recommend Jack Zipes’ translation of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, augmented liberally with Hans Christian Anderson and Charles Perrault. The reasons for this have been explored at length in my posts Fairy Tales and Dark Fairy Tales, so I’ll not devote any more time here on describing their merits.

A Gown Of Spanish Lace

Roses for Mama

I read Christian fiction on an irregular basis, usually because I want a easy-to-read book that doesn’t require much thought to digest and might supply some spiritual encouragement (yes, I know that sounds terrible). In spite of my generally low expectations, two books by Janette Oke have made it to my favorites list. A Gown of Spanish Lace has outlaws. Roses for Mama is simply charming.

Dinotopia

If I was offered the chance to move to any fictional place I wanted, I’d pack up right this minute and relocate to James Gurney’s Dinotopia. Who wouldn’t want to live in world filled with dinosaurs and without any worries about money? Specifically, I want to visit Waterfall City and the coastal towns along Warmwater Bay where you can swim with cryptoclidus. Once you’ve read Gurney’s first book Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time, I advise moving on to Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster. I’ve read that one at least four times.

—
Slightly Bad Leah

26 October, 2013

As I mentioned last week, I recently finished reading Liz Curtis Higgs’ Bad Girls of the Bible series. Slightly Bad Girls, the last book, is a slightly different format than the first two. Higgs only covered five women’s stories — Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah — which allowed her to spend more time with their stories. The fictional accounts span at least two chapters for each character, which allows a longer story-arch for each woman than in the two previous books.

Leah

Leah’s story was the one I found most interesting. There is so much we don’t know about her. For example, we know Jacob was livid when he woke to find Leah in his bed instead of Rachel (Gen. 29:21-24), but we have no idea how Leah reacted to her father switching brides (or what Rachel’s opinion was for that matter).

I wonder what Leah was thinking. Was she so scared of her father that she didn’t dare disobey when he “brought her to Jacob” (Gen 29:23)? Did she want to get out of her father’s house so much she would have married anyone? Was she trying to steal Rachel’s husband? Perhaps she was in love with Jacob and hoped he would return that love once they were married (I don’t have much experience with relationships, but I’m pretty sure impersonating your unrequited-crush’s bride on their wedding night is not the best way to make him fall in love with you).

God’s Love

One of the most interesting verses in Leah’s story is this:

When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved … (Gen. 29:31)

Setting aside for the moment how terrible it was for Leah to be unloved, let’s think about how incredible God’s compassion was for her. He saw her and He “listened to” her prayers (Gen.30:17). Isn’t it comforting to know that even when people who should love you don’t, God sees everything and cares deeply for our pain? It makes me think of my favorite Psalm.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. (Ps. 139:1-3)

We serve a God who is powerful enough to do anything, and He chooses to let His attention and His compassion rest on us. For Leah, God’s care took the form of blessing her with children.

Leah’s Children

I hadn’t thought about it before, but Higgs points out that what Leah says when each of her sons was born reveal that she had a deeper faith in the God than we often give her credit for.

So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.” Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing. (Gen. 29:32-35)

Leah recognized that her sons were a gift from God, given to comfort her when He saw Jacob did not love her. She realized that she was heard and loved by God, and by the time she named her fourth child, Judah, she was able to offer praise to the Lord without even mentioning her hope that Jacob would learn to love her. (As an interesting side note, this is the first time the word “praise” appears in the King James translation.) I doubt Leah moved past her desire for her husband’s love, but perhaps she reached a point where her relationship with God gave her the peace needed to accept her life.

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:11-13)