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- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I read Psalm 50 today, and verses 12-15 emphasize so much what I have been thinking about praise. They say (God is speaking):
"If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
I think this is such a vivid way of describing God's desire for worship - but that the instructions he gives are not because that is what he needs. Instead, as our Creator, he teaches us how we were designed to interact with him so that we can be fulfilled in our relationship with him.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I spent some time on my lunch today meditating on Revelation 4:11,
Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.
The second line caught my attention, because it was different from what I expected - if it was a modern worship song it would say "to receive glory and honour and praise." So I let my mind wonder about why power is ascribed to God here, and I wondered how God can receive power anyways since he is all-powerful.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Maker's Diet
Each phase in the Maker's Diet is two weeks long, so my strategy for meal planning is to plan one week and then repeat it. We may eat meals in a different order the second week, but then we will be on to a different plan the week after that so I don't think it will become too repetitive.
For breakfast during the week, we both have a coconut milk smoothie blended with frozen berries and ground flax seeds. Lunches are left overs from the night before, except for Thursday because omelettes make for sucky left overs. I made a tuna salad with homemade mayonnaise for lunch that day, eaten over lettuce instead of bread. (I did modify the mayonnaise recipe above just by adding vinegar, but will talk about DIY condiments in a separate post and after a couple more experiments!)
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Maker's Diet
I wasn't going to post about the diet Matt and I are doing, but it's forty days long, and now that we are mostly through day 4 I am realizing how unsatisfying it will be to keep notes for the next month and a half and then try to sum everything up out of the blue. So now it's out there - we are doing a diet.
- NOT as a New Year's resolution, we just conveniently had no groceries on Jan. 1 and decided if we were going to do a big shop we might as well get what we need for this diet.
- NOT to lose weight, although it might happen for Matt. I wanted to do this diet as a cleanse to hopefully address some reoccurring health problems. I would rather get my body right than need to take more medicine every couple weeks or months. Matt agreed to do it in solidarity.
What are we doing? Following The Maker's Diet, which I came across on the internet and only chose because the book was in at the library. To be honest, I have read very little of the book itself other than the diet plan, but it sounds like a very interesting story, how the author recovered from near death due to Crohn's Disease by following a "Biblical" diet.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
I have been in a bad way spiritually for the last couple months, and I finally came to my senses how foolish it is to hope for unchanged circumstances to yield new results. And this week since I decided to change some circumstances I have started to read my Bible again. And I've prayed!
These are small but hopeful steps that I am SO grateful for, as I feel some healing creep up into my soul :)
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
I'm not always that into stuff. Life happens day by day, framed by work and chores, commuting and running errands. But. I don't know whether it was the super-duper Christmas AND New Year's long weekends or just having some down time in general, but I have expanded my horizons people! Yes, I have found time to participate in culture. And I love it! So please enjoy this peek at three of the things I am currently into:
I'm reading Anne of Green Gables. I downloaded the first two books for free to my ereader after Christmas and soaked them up like comfort food for my soul. I cried when Matthew died like I always do, and I need to get my act together to put the third book on hold at the library so it will be ready as soon as I finish Anne of Avonlea!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
This post at Red and Honey was the kick in the pants I needed to finally put this post into words before the new year actually starts, sharing the idea I have been mulling over for the last month of choosing a word for the year rather than making a resolution.
The thing with taking a word is that it covers so much more of my life than making a resolution. Resolving to pay down debt doesn't affect whether I sleep or read during my commute, and resolving to eat well won't change how I treat Matt when he comes home late after a long day.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
It is nearing the end of my four day Christmas weekend, and I am bracing myself for three busy days of work before another long weekend for New Year's. I managed to avoid my usual day-at-home-alone habit of constantly grazing on Christmas chocolates, and I think that is part of the reason I feel so good about this day spent relaxing [not eating]. I enjoyed beginning Anne of Green Gables on my new eReader, and Nimoy had our first walk in snow this Winter (in the air, not on the ground yet). I had some company from one of our youth, hung a picture that has been waiting to go on the wall, and I'm looking forward to dinner out with Matt.
All this to say that it takes much longer than four days off work for me to get bored and wish myself busy again - I am just finally starting to relax!
And a belated Merry Christmas to everyone <3
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
Reading this article in National Post about happiness, I was struck by this idea from philosopher Gregory Currie:
When we fail we blame circumstances, but when others fail we blame their bad character. He called that “an error as crazy as thinking that wherever I happen to be marks the centre of the universe.”
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
I was completely startled on my way to work one morning this week when what I thought was dropped clothes on the floor turned out to be a homeless man sleeping in our stairwell.
The elevator has been on the fritz for a week or so, with buttons spontaneously lighting up or going out, and if I don't have anything heavy to carry it's simpler to just take the stairs. This morning I was heading out to work but noticed the stairwell door was propped open with a hat, just a crack, and when I opened the door further I saw a tshirt on the floor. Matt brought laundry up last night, so my please-make-sense-of-this brain filled in the blanks - Matt dropped some clean shirts out of the basket and forget to turn back to pick them up. But then I saw that the tshirt had arms. And a long white beard. And an open mouth, because the tshirt was on a sleeping man. And I smelled that he was probably homeless.