Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Nip Sin in the Bud

Image by mouad gnnoni from Pixabay

Is it possible to limit yourself to just one piece of chocolate?

I’ve never been able to.

I find that having the first piece simply whets my appetite for a second. And I deserve a treat, don’t I?

Then I reason that dark chocolate contains antioxidants, so I’d better have several more pieces, if only for medicinal purposes. After all, you wouldn’t want me to oxidate, would you? I should hope not.

Finally, I rationalize continuing my chocolate binge by referring to the nutritional information on the package of my favourite dark chocolate for support.

It states that 4 squares of the chocolate contain 25% of my daily recommended amount of iron. So if I ate 16 squares, I’d be getting 100% of my daily iron needs met, right? Well, it’s important to prevent anemia, so I then decide I’d better finish off the package completely.

Do you see how my excuses and justifications led from having one piece of chocolate to consuming an entire heap of the stuff in short order? And how easily this all happened?

It’s the same way with sin, isn’t it?

It starts out tiny and unnoticeable, but can soon grow into a mess of mammoth proportions.

That’s why it’s so important to nip sin in the bud, because we have no idea where a “small” sin will lead.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Bring Out the Big Guns

Image of Tsar Cannon, Moscow, by Tatyana Kazakova from Pixabay

Have you ever had a day when you simply needed chocolate?

Maybe you faced some problems, and needed a pick-me-up. Or you were dealing with a heartbreak and needed a balm for your ragged emotions.

And you knew that milk chocolate just wouldn’t cut it, let alone white chocolate.

It required the stronger stuff. You needed to bring out the big guns to help you cope with your challenges:

Dark chocolate.

Only the intense flavour and strength of chocolate with over 80% cocoa solids would do the trick. Nothing else would suffice.

Sometimes we reach a similar point in our spiritual lives, too.

The Christian life isn’t all a bed of roses. Oftentimes we face desperate circumstances, and we may find ourselves crying in a heap on the floor.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Marinate in God’s Word

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Are you planning on firing up the grill to barbecue some meat this summer?

Many people believe the key to success is to marinate the meat beforehand.

When you marinate food before barbecuing it, more is going on than meets the eye (or the taste buds).

You’re doing more than simply soaking the food in a seasoned liquid to add extra flavour to it.

You’re actually changing its structure and making it yield.

Marinating tenderizes meat, breaking down tough connective tissues to make it more palatable. It also helps meat retain moisture, ensuring that the cooked meat will be juicy and not dry.

Marinades usually have a sharp, acidic ingredient, like wine, vinegar or lemon juice, or an enzymatic one, like yogurt of papaya. Herbs, spices and oils are added as well.

Whether you use a red-wine-based marinade for beef dishes, or a tangy yogurt-lemon one for chicken, your meat is guaranteed to turn out tender.

Likewise, when we meditate on God’s Word, or “marinate” in it, we’re doing more than simply adding Biblical quotations to our knowledge base.

As we absorb and internalize Scripture, it changes us and doesn’t leave us the same.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Turning the Bitter Sweet

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

“Go suck a lemon!”

Have you ever heard anyone say that?

It means they’re annoyed with you and want you to experience something unpleasant. Lemon juice is so sour that it makes your mouth pucker.

But if lemon juice is so bitter, why are lemon desserts so yummy?

It’s thanks to the addition of a sweetener.

I like lemon-based desserts much better than orange-flavoured ones. It seems to me that the combination of sour and sweet is what makes lemon desserts so satisfying (see below for Lemon Poppyseed Cake recipe).

They say when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

No, when life hands you lemons, turn it over to God.

He can transform your unwelcome experiences into something good, and make the bitter waters of your life sweeter than any lemonade.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

All You Can Eat

Image by Chris from Pixabay

When it comes to yummy treats, children often don’t want to share.

When my father was a little boy, he and his brother would almost come to blows when it was time for dessert. There would be loud protests if one brother thought he was getting a smaller slice of pie.

So my grandparents came up with a rule: one brother would cut the pieces, and the other would get to choose his portion first.

The idea behind this arrangement was that if the pieces had been cut unequally by the first brother, the other would take advantage of this and choose the larger slice. So the boy cutting the pieces would want to make sure that they were as close in size as possible.

My dad or his brother would actually use a protractor to cut the pie to ensure that each slice was exactly the same angle. Each was determined not to let his brother get a larger piece!

This is a humorous story, but the attitude it portrays can linger in our thoughts as we become adults.

It can even affect how we view God’s beneficence.

We’re somehow afraid that when God divvies things up, there won’t be enough for us. We think that if God gives someone else certain blessings or gifts, it will mean less is available for us.

But God’s economy doesn’t work this way—it’s not a zero sum game.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Accept No Substitutes

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I have a special treat for visitors to The Faith Cafe today: a guest post by my dear friend Veronica Gerber. I’m sure you’ll be as impressed as I am with her Biblical insights and compassionate heart. Enjoy!

Yes, I’ll admit it. I’ve become a bit of a coffee snob since I first tasted the black gold that is the hallmark of the 90s: specialty coffee. It’s easy now to simply say “no thanks” to casual offers of coffee at a meeting or the local diner. Once you’ve tasted the real thing, the competition doesn’t even come close: it may look like coffee, perhaps even smell like coffee, but doesn’t quite pack the same punch…there’s simply no comparison.

Can I say the same about my spiritual palate? Psalm 34:8 declares, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Once we’ve tasted, as-it-were, the goodness of the Lord, dined at the King’s table, how can we feed again on the swill that darkly courses through the world’s troughs?

Take a reading of your own heart and mind. Are you consciously aware of what you’re drinking in day by day through the eye-gate and ear-gate? If you’re settling for the trough when you could be drinking deeply of the living water Jesus offers, stop.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

Label Jars, Not People

By Frank Vincentz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

What’s the difference between a tart and a torte?

For that matter, what’s the difference between torte-with-an-e and tort-without-an-e? Are they all edible?

Let’s see if we can straighten out the confusion.

A tart is an open pastry containing a filling. A torte is a multi-layered cake-like confection. They’re both edible (and extremely tasty—see recipe for Lemon Almond Tart below).

Tort is a legal term referring to a wrongful act or infringement of a right. You could try to eat the paper a tort was described on, but I wouldn’t recommend it!

But we’re not quite finished unpacking the meanings of these similar-sounding words.

A tart can also refer to a promiscuous woman: one who has had many sexual partners. A woman others would look down on. A woman polite society might consider to be “loose.”

But we should be careful before we slap anyone with a label such as this. We never know how God might use them.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Comfort Food For The Soul

Photo via Wikipedia, Public Domain

When you’re feeling stressed, do you reach for comfort food?

Many of us do.

This is perfectly understandable. We’ve been dealing with a pandemic for several years, and are now facing additional crises, including war and rising inflation.

Who would blame us for reaching for cookies, ice cream, fried foods or nostalgic casseroles to console us, even if they can only do so temporarily?

But is there a more lasting source of comfort, preferably one that’s low in fat and calories?

Yes, there is…

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Stay With The Tried And True

Old family cookbooks of the author’s.

Do you have a collection of old family recipes or cookbooks?

Many of us are fortunate enough to have such treasures, lovingly passed down to us. They’re worth hanging on to.

The recipes might be contained in a cookbook, or written down on index cards and filed in a plastic or wooden box. They may be handwritten and neatly organized in a binder, or simply clipped from the newspaper and stuffed haphazardly into the pages of an old cookbook.

But no matter how the recipes are filed, there’s an easy way to tell which ones are the best:

The pages they’re on are a bit of a mess.

The best recipes probably have food stains on them, from when a cook referred to the recipe and absentmindedly pressed a finger, still wet with sauce or melted chocolate, on the page. Or the page got splattered when the cook was stirring the batter with a bit too much gusto.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Get Ready For God To Act

Image by webvilla from Pixabay

When you read a cake or muffin recipe, it will usually instruct you to preheat your oven and get your baking pans prepared before describing how to make the dessert itself.

But why do it in this order? Why not make the batter first, and let it sit there in the bowl while you leisurely grease or line the baking pans and let the oven slowly heat up?

There’s a very good reason to have everything prepared before you start the actual baking, and it has to do with how leaveners behave.

As soon as a raising agent like baking soda comes into contact with the liquids in your cake batter, a chemical reaction starts to take place. Gases are generated, and bubbles begin forming. You want those bubbles to stay trapped inside the cake to give it loft and airiness.

If you let the batter sit there on the counter for too long, the gases would escape into the air. This would prevent your finished cake from being as light and fluffy as it could be. So as soon as the leavening agent is added and mixed in, put the batter into the prepared pan and get it into the heated oven as quickly as you can.

It’s the same way in life, isn’t it?

When God adds the circumstance or person that will be a catalyst to change your situation, things often begin moving very fast. If you’re not ready, it might catch you off guard. You may end up stumbling instead of stepping confidently into the new level God has in mind for you. You might not rise as high as you could have.

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