...she's never watched a game show.
Making Your Home an Oasis
3 years ago
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
Peanut Butter Texas Sheet Cake
If you love peanut butter, well, you're gonna love this cake. I mean, love, as in, it's going to take every bit of self-control you have to not eat the whole thing.
2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1 c. butter
1 c. water
1/4 c. creamy peanut butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. buttermilk
Peanut Butter Icing
Garnish: chopped peanuts
Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl, set aside. Combine butter, water, and peanut butter in a saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil. Add to flour mixture and mix well; set aside. Combine eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk; add to peanut butter mixture.
Spread batter in a greased 15x10 jelly roll pan (I used my Pampered Chef large bar pan, which is 15x10, and I sprayed it with Baker's Joy). Bake at 350 degrees for 25-28 minutes or until cake springs back when gently touched. Spread Peanut Butter Icing over warm cake and garnish, if desired. Serves 15-20.
Peanut Butter Icing
1/2 c. butter
1/4 c. creamy peanut butter
1/3 c. plus 1 T. milk
16 ounce package of powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
Combine first three ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in powdered sugar and vanilla, mixing until spreading consistency.
~from Gooseberry Patch's Quick and Easy cookbook
***The picture in my cookbook shows an icing without any specks of powdered sugar. I'm assuming a mixer was used to get it to look that way because mine didn't when mixing by hand. And I didn't garnish with peanuts because I didn't have any. :) Enjoy!
With love,
Trisha
The Wonder of Your Company
It is no small gift from God to be counted one among His saints. And it is no small thing to enjoy the pleasure of the saints' company, the joy of their friendship.
Those who love us with the love of Christ bear with our infirmities, rejoice with us when rejoicing is hard, speak difficult truths to us in love, overlook offenses, graciously forgive offenses, cheer us on when we've grown weary and want to give up.
Sometimes I look at the company God has given me to keep, and I'm in awe. They are wiser and more loving. More forgiving. More gracious. They're big-hearted while I'm small-minded. They stand up straight, arms and hands wide open, while I cower, arms crossed and hands tight-fisted. They give grace by the tons, while I'm tempted to offer it in spoonfuls.
It's like running with a group of seasoned athletes, and I'm the amateur in the middle. But these friends don't leave me behind. They patiently let me run with them, even though I'm always stumbling and catching my breath, and I push myself because of their kindness, and I exercise those places in my soul that are too easily neglected. I remember their examples, when they didn't return evil for evil, when they gave to their hurt, when they rejoiced with me in the midst of their own heartbreak, and God uses them to sharpen me.
They are truly holier than I am.
"We are all of us at times bad and laughable, but there are still also among us now and then truth, greatness, even holiness. The merest hint of true holiness we are quick to suspect as counterfeit, and we condemn what we like to call a 'holier than thou' attitude. But years ago a teacher pointed out that the person I was condemning was in fact holier than I--and it certainly didn't take much."
~Elisabeth Elliot
In our socialist mindset, we're tempted to think that Christians are equally holy, equally sanctified. But we're not. And those around us who are more like Christ than we are should not move us to doubt or envy, but rather, they should move us to wonder. To wonder at God's grace and His work in them, and to wonder at the ways they bear with us and encourage us, and to wonder at the truth that God is working in us, too.
C. S. Lewis said this of his friends:
"In a perfect friendship...each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all of the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others."
The glorious truth is that God has set us among our "betters." What a gift it is to learn from them, to run this race with them. What a gift it is to know the wonder of their company.
With love,
Trisha
Those who love us with the love of Christ bear with our infirmities, rejoice with us when rejoicing is hard, speak difficult truths to us in love, overlook offenses, graciously forgive offenses, cheer us on when we've grown weary and want to give up.
Sometimes I look at the company God has given me to keep, and I'm in awe. They are wiser and more loving. More forgiving. More gracious. They're big-hearted while I'm small-minded. They stand up straight, arms and hands wide open, while I cower, arms crossed and hands tight-fisted. They give grace by the tons, while I'm tempted to offer it in spoonfuls.
It's like running with a group of seasoned athletes, and I'm the amateur in the middle. But these friends don't leave me behind. They patiently let me run with them, even though I'm always stumbling and catching my breath, and I push myself because of their kindness, and I exercise those places in my soul that are too easily neglected. I remember their examples, when they didn't return evil for evil, when they gave to their hurt, when they rejoiced with me in the midst of their own heartbreak, and God uses them to sharpen me.
They are truly holier than I am.
"We are all of us at times bad and laughable, but there are still also among us now and then truth, greatness, even holiness. The merest hint of true holiness we are quick to suspect as counterfeit, and we condemn what we like to call a 'holier than thou' attitude. But years ago a teacher pointed out that the person I was condemning was in fact holier than I--and it certainly didn't take much."
~Elisabeth Elliot
In our socialist mindset, we're tempted to think that Christians are equally holy, equally sanctified. But we're not. And those around us who are more like Christ than we are should not move us to doubt or envy, but rather, they should move us to wonder. To wonder at God's grace and His work in them, and to wonder at the ways they bear with us and encourage us, and to wonder at the truth that God is working in us, too.
C. S. Lewis said this of his friends:
"In a perfect friendship...each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all of the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others."
The glorious truth is that God has set us among our "betters." What a gift it is to learn from them, to run this race with them. What a gift it is to know the wonder of their company.
With love,
Trisha
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Saturday, November 30, 2013
A Month of Thanksgiving~And What Moved Him to All This?
"Oh! blessed be God that hath chosen me to be of the number of His peculiar people...and for me to be one of His peculiar people, a member of Christ's mystical body, oh! what a privilege is this! And then what moved Him to all this? Nothing but His own free grace. Therefore praise the Lord."
~Thomas Manton
~Thomas Manton
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thanksgiving 2013~Do I Write This Boasting?
"Do I write this boastingly, brother? Nay, it is with tears of humble gratitude that I tell of the goodness of the Lord."
~Bapa Padmanji, quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David
Nothing perfect happening in our home today. But there was lots of God's goodness, an overwhelming amount of God's goodness. Oh, praise His name!
Happy Thanksgiving!
With love,
Trisha
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
A Month of Thanksgiving~From the Christmas Lists of Babes
My children teach me much about contentment. And the lessons often come from their Christmas lists.
This will be a lean gift-giving year for us, and I'm already dreading the day after Thanksgiving, when the floodgates open and Christmas shopping is on!
But, the pressure I feel is my own. It's wrapped up in my ideas of what Christmas should look like for my loved ones. The proof that I'm the one with the contentment issue is here:
Chapstick! Little Elisabeth would like her own chapstick. We can do that.
And then there's one of our older children not quite knowing what to put on his list. Not because he wants so many things, but precisely because he doesn't want so many things.
Books. Pens. Play earrings. Play horses. Baby dolls. Pack of cards. Army men. A pack of cars.
The lists are humble ones.
And they leave me thankful that we've never been able to shower our children with extravagant gifts--no iPods or computers when they're 8 or 10. No car when they're 16.
That's not a judgment on those who can do that for their children. God works different ways in different families. Rather, it's simply an acknowledgement that we might have different children had we been able to give them those things. The hedges God has put around us have forced us to be very intentional about other things. And the fruit I see in our children is beautiful.
Their stockings might be lightweights, but I believe their souls are full, heavy with the knowledge of God and His goodness. Some of us are blessed to have fat stockings and fat souls. Thanks be to God for that blessing! But, if God should only give our family one, you know what I would choose every time.
If there's a sadness about you because you long to give more things than your bank account will allow, remember the expectations might very well just be your own. Rest in His provision, praise Him for the glorious truth of the gospel, the amazing gift of Jesus, the grace of contented hearts, and trust in the good work He continues to do in your family. These gifts are priceless.
With love,
Trisha
***Perhaps your family doesn't exchange gifts. But, please, this is not the place for a discussion on whether Christians should celebrate Christmas or exchange gifts. We celebrate, and we give, and we thank God we can.
This will be a lean gift-giving year for us, and I'm already dreading the day after Thanksgiving, when the floodgates open and Christmas shopping is on!
But, the pressure I feel is my own. It's wrapped up in my ideas of what Christmas should look like for my loved ones. The proof that I'm the one with the contentment issue is here:
Chapstick! Little Elisabeth would like her own chapstick. We can do that.
And then there's one of our older children not quite knowing what to put on his list. Not because he wants so many things, but precisely because he doesn't want so many things.
Books. Pens. Play earrings. Play horses. Baby dolls. Pack of cards. Army men. A pack of cars.
The lists are humble ones.
And they leave me thankful that we've never been able to shower our children with extravagant gifts--no iPods or computers when they're 8 or 10. No car when they're 16.
That's not a judgment on those who can do that for their children. God works different ways in different families. Rather, it's simply an acknowledgement that we might have different children had we been able to give them those things. The hedges God has put around us have forced us to be very intentional about other things. And the fruit I see in our children is beautiful.
Their stockings might be lightweights, but I believe their souls are full, heavy with the knowledge of God and His goodness. Some of us are blessed to have fat stockings and fat souls. Thanks be to God for that blessing! But, if God should only give our family one, you know what I would choose every time.
If there's a sadness about you because you long to give more things than your bank account will allow, remember the expectations might very well just be your own. Rest in His provision, praise Him for the glorious truth of the gospel, the amazing gift of Jesus, the grace of contented hearts, and trust in the good work He continues to do in your family. These gifts are priceless.
With love,
Trisha
***Perhaps your family doesn't exchange gifts. But, please, this is not the place for a discussion on whether Christians should celebrate Christmas or exchange gifts. We celebrate, and we give, and we thank God we can.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
A Month of Thanksgiving~Because Hope Isn't Buried With Our Loved Ones
When a loved one dies, our life's foundation is exposed. Is our faith, our life, built on Jesus, or was it built on the one who's no longer here? I witness a precious friend fight for joy in the Lord as she grieves the loss of her son, and I witness others continuing to sink lower in a state of despair, their grief years old, but the defeat coming fresh with each sunrise. One has hope, but the others live as if all hope is gone, something that was buried with their loved ones. They have forgotten who they are in Christ Jesus. They have forgotten that He is their hope!
Here is truth given by a pastor who recently buried his infant son. As I was reading his words, I was reminded of the goodness of God in using the afflictions of others to encourage and strengthen the body of Christ and to bring Him glory!
"The sting of death was sin, but when sin has been fully paid for, there is no more sting. The sting is gone, and now death is swallowed up in victory. Death is still hard. It is like a long journey, like going into the wilderness. But it isn't loss. It isn't the end. It isn't defeat. Now, for all those who know Jesus, death is a great adventure, a new beginning. For when we die, we go down into death armed with the Spirit of the well-beloved Son, the Son back from the dead, who holds the power of unending life. For those who believe in Jesus, though we die, yet we shall live."
~Toby Sumpter
Please read the rest here:
The Gospel of the Well-Beloved Son
Praising God today for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, a hope that keeps us from being swallowed up by our grief, a hope that allows us to rejoice in the midst of great sadness.
With love,
Trisha
Here is truth given by a pastor who recently buried his infant son. As I was reading his words, I was reminded of the goodness of God in using the afflictions of others to encourage and strengthen the body of Christ and to bring Him glory!
"The sting of death was sin, but when sin has been fully paid for, there is no more sting. The sting is gone, and now death is swallowed up in victory. Death is still hard. It is like a long journey, like going into the wilderness. But it isn't loss. It isn't the end. It isn't defeat. Now, for all those who know Jesus, death is a great adventure, a new beginning. For when we die, we go down into death armed with the Spirit of the well-beloved Son, the Son back from the dead, who holds the power of unending life. For those who believe in Jesus, though we die, yet we shall live."
~Toby Sumpter
Please read the rest here:
The Gospel of the Well-Beloved Son
Praising God today for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, a hope that keeps us from being swallowed up by our grief, a hope that allows us to rejoice in the midst of great sadness.
With love,
Trisha
Sunday, November 24, 2013
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