Strength in Weakness

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 

-II Corinthians 12:9

When you really think about this, it can change your entire perspective.
It's one of those things I always go back to and have to remind myself of, and then Joe talked about it in his message on Sunday- not for the first time.

We are human.
When I say that, I do not mean we are just human, I mean we are human, and that is a pretty amazing thing to be. We were created in the image of God and given completely free will. And we are given the choice, multiple times everyday, to do our own will, or to do His, our Father's.
We are given the choice to handle things our way, or His.
We are given the choice to depend on our own strength, or on His.

So many times when we get into scrapes, we try to stay strong. We'll brace ourselves against whatever we're fighting, clench our fists, close our eyes, and just keep plunging onward, blind and deaf to all outside voices, including that of Wisdom. Eventually, our hearts will either break under this pressure, or become completely hardened. Neither is good.

Sometimes we don't take that action during trials, though. Sometimes we beg God to give us strength. This is a step in the right direction, but it is only a one-sided view... what if we don't see what God sees? Maybe we think we need one thing, and God knows we need another...

What if we didn't ask God to give us strength?

What if we asked God to make us weak?


He must become greater; I must become less.

-John 3:30


For Him to increase, I must decrease. We've all heard that said, but have we ever stopped to ponder it? What if we sometimes we aren't supposed to be rocks, bound in iron chains of our stubborn will to stand? There is only one Rock, and we could be standing on Him.
It's okay to be weak.

Perhaps our prayer should be, rather than, "Lord give me strength,"

..."Lord, make me weak in myself, let everything in this fight that is of me and not of You be ground up and discarded so that there is room for You to be the rock here, to guide me to do things Your way. Whether I fight or remain peaceful in this situation, let it be Your Spirit that deciphers within me which of those options is appropriate. Let the actions I take be Your actions, the words I speak be Your words, and the outcome be all to Your glory. Use this trial to mold me more and to guide me closer into being the person You have designed me to be. Help me to step out of the way and let You be the strength here."

We should rejoice at being weak in ourselves, because it means that our GOD IS SO MUCH STRONGER and He is holding us, and we are in the safest place we could possibly be. 

And in the end, it doesn't even come down to words, but to the state of your heart. Only recognize that it is He who wins battles, not us. We are fighting fights not with God as our little helper when we feel we're about to fall, but with God as our Leader and our Armor.

Sometimes, when we let Him take over, He doesn't even lead us into those raging wars we expected Him to help us with, but instead leads us beside those still waters, and restores our souls.

Homemade Toothpaste

Around Christmas time last year, I followed a really straightforward recipe I found online for homemade toothpaste. My mother liked it, and I liked it, but most of the younger ones didn't. I guess I'd gotten used to brushing with straight baking soda, so the strong presence of that ingredient didn't bother me so much.

That said, this toothpaste may not be as pleasant as a store-bought tube, but it is so much healthier, simpler, and does a good job of freshening your mouth right up... plus whitening! Fluoride free, chemical free, and made with the common ingredients in your kitchen.

You'll Need:

8 tablespoons baking soda
8 tablespoons coconut oil
3 packets Stevia
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

And that's it- mix it up!

Since the texture of coconut oil changes with the temperature of its storage area, your toothpaste may change consistency as well. It won't become liquid like the oil itself, but it will be very soft if kept in the bathroom while someone's bath water is fogging up everything. Likewise it will be hard when cold. Keep it at the temperature that best suits you, and reserve a spoon for application to a toothbrush. (Don't be like a certain woman I know and just stick your toothbrush in... then no one else wants to use it!! XD )

Of course I had to run out in the rain and pick some actual peppermint leaves to make this look all artsy... wouldn't it be nice to someday be able to make my own essential oils? 

Happy brushing. :)

Lemon Balm

 

Lemon balm is believed to be most useful in the areas of helping digestive problems, relieving pain, and aiding mental disorders, and is also very handy for soothing anxiety and restlessness. 

When applied to the skin, lemon balm can heal cold sores and sooth insect bites. It's also a mosquito repellent.  

I decided to try and make a lemon balm tincture. I'm not using vodka or any other kind of alcohol (obviously), so I tried the apple cider vinegar method. ACV isn't going to make as potent and useful a concoction as other versions would, but it can be used for salad dressing, hair rinse, and herbal baths. And the healing and calming benefits still reside.

--Lemon Balm Apple Cider Vinegar Tincture--

I picked several stalks of the herb from my garden, generally selecting the largest ones from the perimeter of the patch. It grows like crazy and will keep expanding and filling out. 

Brush off any dirt with a dry paper towel... I was reluctant to rinse them and lose any of the oils, but you can do that if you want. 

Strip off all your leaves and chop them up. Load them into a sterile jar- press lightly, but don't pack them down.

Pour in your vinegar (you could also use red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, etc, just not white vinegar) so that it just covers the lemon balm. You can warm the vinegar slightly before hand to help steep the leaves, but room temperature will suffice.

Shake the mixture well and store in a cool, dark area for four weeks, shaking well twice a day. After this period, strain your leaves from the liquid using a cheesecloth or muslin. Shelf life should last between one and two years if stored properly.

I'll let you all know what I use it for and how it goes once I've completed the process myself. :)

--Dried Lemon Balm--

I picked three little bundles of lemon balm and bound them with rubber bands, hanging them in the open air for three days. 

If they had been a little bit dryer, I would have been able to crumble them in the wax paper, bit as it was, they were just stiff enough for me to pluck from the stems and still have the entire leaves. 

So, these dried leaves I will keep in a jar for tea when the season for fresh lemon balm has passed into Autumn. I think I'll dry a bunch of the wild spearmint that grows  by our creek, too, because that would mix well with the lemon. 

...But so long as there is still fresh lemon balm, it makes a wonderful tea, mixed with raw honey. 

For best results, crush the leaves with a spoon before adding hot water.

And look! My bee balm is back, tall and glorious. ^_^

Traditions

Our summers consist of many traditional things- the campfire on the solstice, the berry picking, the weeks spent at camp, etc. A couple of my favorites are the hayride to our neighbor's fireworks on the 4th of July, and the annual cousin pictures. And it's always a rare treat when those cousins are involved with the hayride and fireworks. 

One night before the 4th, my family went to watch fireworks in the school parking lot over the West Winfield park. This has kind of become a tradition now, too. Afterward, we flocked to the playground and claimed the swings. Daddy took our requests to play Light up the Sky and Life is Beautiful by The Afters through his phone. We listened in the dark and gazed at the stars, each swing seeming to take us higher and higher until we could shoot for the sky. 

On the following Monday, our cousins came over. 

Izzy and I walked up the road to the Birdseye Hill field. I took her to the stone wall and we schemed things like we usually do. ;)

At the end of the day, we got our annual cousin pictures. They came out so cute this year! It was tons of fun. 

And finally, on Friday- Independence Day- we had our hayride. 

The cousins had not planned on attending this year, due to previous plans. But don't you love it when plans get changed? 

One of my favorite memories is the year when Iz and I were 11, and the cousins lived in Arizona. We had gone without seeing them for 3 years. Finally, they were able to come that summer, and happened to be getting into New York on the very same day as the fireworks and hayride. We were told there was no way they would be able to come to them though, being so tired after the long trip.

I'll never forget playing out on the lawn as the dusk settled in, and just absently noticing as a car drove in. (There was tons of cars, this event is heavily attended by friends and neighbors.) Moments later, over the noise of the crowd and the music, I heard a voice yell, "Hannah?"

"...Isabel?!"

"HANNNAH!!"

And we were running across the grass and colliding. 

Yup, that was one of the best nights ever. 

Mia Walker always rides with me. ;)

Well, here we are six years later. And it's still so exciting for all of us when the cousins show up. There has always just been this energy, this complete absence of shyness, even when we go for years without seeing each other. We pick up where we left off, more excited and crazy than ever. I truly believe we were put on this earth already best friends, Izzy. XD

Black Cap Picking

Today we went searching for black caps. Goat-milk pale and basket in hand, Mama, the little boys, Ella and I, left the Kubota on the path and walked around the perimeter of the cornfield to the heifer pasture. It's just the beginning of black cap season...

The first bushes were all in a tangle along the fence with some of the tallest thistles ever. Luckily, Landon and Jonathan brought their wooden "swords" and slew a few. There was some over-under fence crawling or jumping, but we did our best to lift leaves and pull away thorns to uncover most of what was plump and ripe. 

So many are still red! The next week will be full of black, juicy berries. 

Wild berries in a home-made pie. ^_^