Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Perfect Christmas?

Photo by Adam Clark on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

What’s your idea of the perfect Christmas? Many of us have images in our minds of what the ideal Yuletide should look like.

It usually involves a spectacular Christmas tree with enticing gifts piled beneath it. The house would be decorated with pine boughs and red bows inside, and the exterior decked out with lights. The day itself would feature a scrumptious dinner with all the fixings, and numerous home-baked desserts. Top it all off with a house full of family, friends and laughter.

There’s only one problem with this picture.

It’s awfully hard to live up to.

Perhaps you were laid off from your job just before Christmas. Or maybe you’re employed, but things are still really tight financially. You just can’t provide all the gifts that your children have been asking for, and you know they might be disappointed.

Or maybe someone in your family is going through a health crisis. It looks serious, and you’re all under a lot of stress as a result. It might be hard to feel “merry” this Christmas.

It could be that you have some fractured or broken relationships in your life. Maybe things are very tense with a certain family member. Or perhaps you’ve lost someone dear to you, and this will be the first Christmas without them. The holidays might be a lonely time for you.

There are a lot of reasons why the Christmas season might fall short of what we want it to be.

But when you think about it, the first Christmas was fraught with struggles, too. Mary and Joseph certainly didn’t have it easy.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

God Won’t Waste Your Pain

Quilting Bee circa 1910s, New Jersey
Photo by Richard on Flickr CC BY-2.0

Did you grow up in a family that hated wasting things? So did I.

Instead of throwing out old scraps of fabric, my paternal great-grandmother would twist the lengths and sew the resulting cords together into a rag rug. Nothing was wasted.

It was the same on my mother’s side of the family. Material from clothes that were no longer of use would be cut up and sewn into quilts. My Mom recalls sitting underneath the quilting frame as a child when her mother and other female relatives worked together at a quilting bee (Mom thought she was “helping” push the needle back up to the top surface). Even as a little girl, my mother learned an early lesson in letting nothing go to waste.

I must have inherited that trait.

I love recipes that not only produce a yummy result, but that are efficient. By that I mean that you’re not left with partly used cans of an ingredient that will languish in the fridge and eventually have to be thrown out.

I prefer a recipe that uses up the whole can of an ingredient, or, if it calls for 3 egg yolks for the batter, it also calls for 3 egg whites for the filling or a meringue. Nothing is wasted. No leftover egg whites that you have to store until you think of another recipe that can use them up.

Likewise, I think God is efficient in how He manages our lives. He won’t waste anything we go through: it all has a purpose, even the negative parts.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Greatest Miracle of All

Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay

What would you pick as Jesus’ greatest miracle?

Feeding the 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish?

Yes, that definitely rates as one of Jesus’ greatest hits.

Calming a storm with only His words?

That one would make the top ten as well.

How about walking on water?

Oh, now we’re getting somewhere! That miracle surely places in the top three.

Wait a second….we haven’t mentioned Jesus’ raising of the dead. He did that several times: the widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, and Lazarus.

That has to be Jesus’ greatest miracle!

Doesn’t it?

Perhaps not. Perhaps none of these is Jesus’ greatest miracle.

But if that’s true, then what would qualify?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Ultimate Makeover

Photo by Neriman Özaydın via Pexels

We all love before-and-after transformations, don’t we?

The dramatic TV makeover that transforms a Plain Jane into a femme fatale.

Or the renovation that turns a dated, nondescript room into something fit for the pages of “House Beautiful” magazine.

But TV shows and magazines aren’t the only places to find dramatic makeovers.

There are astonishing before-and-after changes in the Bible, too.

One example of this is found in Peter, the brash, impulsive disciple of Jesus. A bit hot-headed, Peter was often afflicted by “foot-in-mouth” disease.

When we first meet Peter, he’s working as a fisherman. When Jesus provides the group with a miraculous catch of fish after they’d worked all night and caught nothing, Peter is scared. He says, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” ((Luke 5:1-10)

The demonstration of Jesus’ holiness and miracle-working power leaves Peter shaken.

Another snapshot of Peter is seen when he and the disciples are in a boat with Jesus. A storm whips up and they are afraid for their lives; Jesus, however, is asleep. Peter and the others wake Jesus up and say, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?” (Matthew 8:23-27)

The prospect of imminent death rattles Peter.

Our last view of Peter occurs when Jesus has been arrested. Peter skulks around to see what will become of him while at the same time trying to disassociate himself from Jesus. When a of couple servant girls insist that he was definitely a friend of Jesus, Peter doesn’t have the courage to admit it. (Matthew 26:69-74)

The possibility of getting in trouble compels Peter to clam up about the truth.

But what a difference a day makes!

I’m referring, of course, to Resurrection day!

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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

Straight Out of Left Field

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Have you ever had a time in your life when God did a work for you that came straight out of left field?

The blessing, provision or miracle he bestowed on you caught you off guard and astonished you. It was completely unexpected and surprising.

You never saw it coming.

God seems to like to work that way, doesn’t he?

Think of Moses in the Old Testament, when he was leading the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt.

They found themselves in a jam: cornered at the Red Sea with the Egyptian army snapping at their heels.

Moses had faith that God would save them, but I wonder if he was racking his brains trying to figure out just how it would happen.

Maybe God would send a flotilla of boats from the other side to rescue them, Dunkirk-style? But no one knew they were coming, and at any rate, the only people on the other side were either enemies or strangers.

Maybe God would send an affable and reasonable Egyptian captain to negotiate with Moses? Not likely, since all of Egypt’s firstborn had just been killed. The Egyptians were in no mood to parley with their escaped slaves.

No matter what Moses came up with as a potential solution, he never could have expected the curveball that God threw:

God miraculously parted the waters of the Red Sea and allowed the Israelites to cross over on dry ground, then closed up the waters to drown their enemies. Moses surely didn’t see that one coming!

And that’s not the only curveball that God threw…

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Mustard Seed Faith

Image by Şahin Sezer Dinçer from Pixabay

What are the smallest seeds on earth?

You might guess mustard seeds. Close, but not quite.

How about poppy seeds?

They’re very tiny. You’ll find out how extremely tiny they are if you accidentally spill them on the floor. You’ll discover that you can’t pick them all up by hand: it’s hopeless. You have to bring out your vacuum. (Don’t ask me how I found this out!)

Actually, the tiniest seeds on earth are said to be those of certain orchids from the tropical rainforest. Each of these dust-like seeds weighs only one 35 millionth of an ounce. They’re smaller than a grain of salt.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the prize for the largest seed on earth probably goes to the Coco-de-Mer palm tree of the Seychelles Islands. One of its seeds can weigh up to 45 pounds.

Mustard seeds are a bit larger than poppy seeds, but they’re still exceptionally tiny compared to most seeds.

They’re so small that Jesus used them as an example in one of His teachings. Surprisingly, He said that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could see great things accomplished.

How is this possible?

Because when we have even a small amount of pure faith, God uses it as a force multiplier. Our tiny contribution somehow provides the spark for God’s power to show up in a big way.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Fast Or Slow, God Is Always At Work

Image by Valiphotos from Pixabay

If you look out the (virtual) window here at The Faith Cafe, you can see the leaves starting to change colour on the trees outside.

The tops of the maple trees are starting to blush with red. There’s a hint of yellow among the linden leaves. And the sumacs are beginning to fire up in vivid shades of orange.

This change creeps in gradually, however. At first, you barely notice fall coming on. Weeks from now, though, the trees will be ablaze in vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds. The difference from how they look today will be dramatic.

Oftentimes, I think this is the way God works in our lives.

He is slowly but surely leading us through a process of change and sanctification.

We may not notice that aspects of our character are being transformed, because the change is so gradual. One day, however, you look up and realize how far you’ve come and what amazing things God has done in your life.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Best Fire Protection

Baked Alaska dessert set alight. Image by Vxla on Flickr. CC BY-2.0

Baked Alaska is one of those desserts that seems like it will end in disaster.

This dessert involves covering a core of ice cream and cake with meringue and baking it at 450-500 degrees Fahrenheit. Really.

Who puts ice cream in a hot oven anyway?

Surely it will result in a melted mess, and you’ll be spending the next hour resentfully scrubbing out your oven.

But Baked Alaska will surprise and amaze you.

When you take this dessert out of the oven after a few minutes, you find that the meringue has cooked and slightly browned, but the ice cream underneath it is still cold and has retained its firm shape. The ice cream inside the “igloo” has remained untouched by the intense heat.

It seems miraculous, because you’d think that ice cream would melt when it came anywhere near temperatures that high. It’s not actually a miracle, however, but rather a clever application of physics. The dessert was invented in the 1800s by American physicist Benjamin Thompson, who was investigating the insulating properties of whipped egg whites.

If you want a genuine example of miraculous protection from a hot oven, you need to go the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

Call G-O-D For Help

Image by nir_design from Pixabay

Sometimes in life we just need a friendly ear, don’t we?

911 dispatchers have certainly found this out.

People call the emergency line for the darnedest of reasons, either to vent about some minor injustice or just to get some advice.

Like the fellow who called 911 to ask what last night’s sports scores were.

Or the little girl who needed help with her math homework.

One guy called 999, the UK version of 911, at 4am on a Saturday morning to ask, “Where is the best place to get a bacon sandwich right now?”

A Halton, Ontario, boy recently called the emergency line in an outrage when his Mom changed the password to his Xbox.

Some have been known to dial 911 when their pizza delivery wasn’t ready on time.

We get consumed with anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, or anger and think, “There must be someone I can call about this!”

Needless to say, 911 should be reserved for actual emergencies only, please.

But sometimes we just need someone to talk to, even if it’s about random things.

It’s good to know that no matter how big or small your concerns, God is interested in hearing from you.

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