Lean and Green: The Smoothie Challenge

How often did we shutter when our mother reminded us of the importance of eating our vegetables? My dog eats several things I won't mention in this blog but one thing she refuses to touch is...vegetables. Broccoli alone is chock full of valuable vitamins and minerals, most of which are lost during the cooking process but who eats raw broccoli every day?

For quite some time now my family and I have been partakers of Green Smoothie Girl's (www.greensmoothiegirl.com) 30 Day Smoothie challenge. We have already completed the thirty days and are enjoying the benefits of eating at least 15 servings of green vegetables and fruits a day.

James and I have both lost weight, I get more compliments now on my appearance and the kids love the smoothies too! Increased energy, decreased irritability, no more struggling to get through tired afternoons, it's amazing stuff.

GSG (Green Smoothie Girl) recommends starting with mild greens and mostly fruit (25% greens: spinach or kale are great starters and 75% fruit: must include at least one if not two bananas then whatever else you like) If you can add a superfood (goji berries, acai berries, wheat grass, hemp seed, etc.) all the better!

To start add only the green lettuce to the number 5 in your blender. Then add juice or water about halfway up the greens. Blend until liquid. Then from here add all other ingredients. Blend and serve. For a creamer smoothie you can add kefir or yogurt. This can also boost up your probiotic intake which will only help mop up all the free radicals and cancer causing carcinogens in the digestive system. The greens alone are great at cleaning up the digestive tract of all unwelcome toxins left behind from most anything we eat. The fruit helps to hide all the bitterness from most greens and the blending process of the smoothie helps your digestive system to make the most of all the nutrients and live enzymes contained within for optimal health.

My six year old (who has already noticed an increased ability to concentrate and maintain his anxiety levels: thank you ADHD, OCD and CTD) is quite the smoothie connoisseur. He LOVES them. Below I have his famous Kandy Kooler recipe he makes for the kids for breakfast.

Kandy Kooler
3 cups Spinach
2 cups Kale
1 T. Hemp Powder (a complete protein full of Omega 3's, 6's and CLA's)
1 T. Ground Flax Seed (full of Omega 3's and 6's)
2.5 cups grape juice or cherry juice or combo of both (juice with no added sugars recommended)

Blend together

Add

1 Banana
1 cup blueberries
1 peach cut up into chunks
4 Strawberries
1/2 cup kefir or yogurt of choice

Optional ingredients to add:
Acai pulp or berries
1 pear
1 apple
1 mango for punch
1/2 cucumber
2 carrots

Blend all together then pour in cups and serve. Can be kept in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

Your First Love

"Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you left your first love." -Jesus Christ, to the church of Ephesus, Revelation 2:4

In love I am calling out to you my sisters and brothers in Christ as I, too, am convicted of this. Conservative Christians: do you find it easy to boast in your godly wisdom and revelations yet is it difficult to show grace and love to others? Both to believers and unbelievers alike? Stacy MacDonald once said, "I would rather have lunch with a willing heathen than a prideful Christian." Christians, we MUST watch our pride. In the recent past, I watched as a brother and sister in Christ were told that the cause of their endless trials and suffering were being brought on by God as judgment. Shameful! This reminds me of Job's response to his friends, "Oh, that you would be silent, and it would be your wisdom!" Job 13:5
I believe we conservative Christians, reformed theologians, have fallen astray from our first love. One man, I know, has great love for Jesus. It emits from him. It doesn't mean he dresses in pants down to his ankles and curses and witnesses at bars in an effort to become all things to all people so that some might be saved. (A gross misinterpretation of Paul's preaching to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 9:22.)
No, this great man of God, full of the wisdom of His Father and yet humble in his knowledge, fully displays the love of Jesus. So please, my friends in Christ, know that I love you because I love my Master and if I fall from this way and have gone astray in my love for Him, please, in love, tell me so that I may never take my eyes on the only One deserving of my adoration.

I close with wise words from the Prince of Preachers: Charles Spurgeon, my love to you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

"The love of Christ constraineth us."
--2 Corinthians 5:14

How much owest thou unto my Lord? Has He ever done anything for thee? Has He forgiven thy sins? Has He covered thee with a robe of righteousness? Has He set thy feet upon a rock? Has He established thy goings? Has He prepared heaven for thee? Has He prepared thee for heaven? Has He written thy name in His book of life? Has He given thee countless blessings? Has He laid up for thee a store of mercies, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard? Then do something for Jesus worthy of His love. Give not a mere wordy offering to a dying Redeemer. How will you feel when your Master comes, if you have to confess that you did nothing for Him, but kept your love shut up, like a stagnant pool, neither flowing forth to His poor or to His work. Out on such love as that!
What do men think of a love which never shows itself in action? Why, they say, "Open rebuke is better than secret love." Who will accept a love so weak that it does not actuate you to a single deed of self-denial, of generosity, of heroism, or zeal! Think how He has loved you, and given Himself for you! Do you know the power of that love? Then let it be like a rushing mighty wind to your soul to sweep out the clouds of your worldliness, and clear away the mists of sin. "For Christ's sake" be this the tongue of fire that shall sit upon you: "for Christ's sake" be this the divine rapture, the heavenly afflatus to bear you aloft from earth, the divine spirit that shall make you bold as lions and swift as eagles in your Lord's service. Love should give wings to the feet of service, and strength to the arms of labour. Fixed on God with a constancy that is not to be shaken, resolute to honour Him with a determination that is not to be turned aside, and pressing on with an ardour never to be wearied, let us manifest the constraints of love to Jesus. May the divine loadstone draw us heavenward towards itself.

Ten Reasons Not To Ask Jesus Into Your Heart

Written By Todd Friel
The music weeps, the preacher pleads, “Give your heart to Jesus. You have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” Dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who want to get their spiritual life on track make their way to the altar. They ask Jesus into their heart.
Cut to three months later. Nobody has seen our new convert in church. The follow up committee calls him and encourages him to attend a Bible study, but to no avail. We label him a backslider and get ready for the next outreach event.
Our beloved child lies in her snuggly warm bed and says, “Yes, Daddy. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” You lead her in “the prayer” and hope that it sticks. You spend the next ten years questioning if she really, really meant it. Puberty hits and the answer reveals itself. She backslides. We spend the next ten years praying that she will come to her senses.
Telling someone to ask Jesus into their hearts has a very typical result, backsliding. the Bible says that a person who is soundly saved puts his hand to the plow and does not look back because he is fit for service. In other words, a true convert cannot backslide. If a person backslides, he never slid forward in the first place. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (II Cor.5) No backsliding there.
Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were mis-informed.
If you have ever told someone to ask Jesus into their heart (like I have), you produced a false convert. Here is why.
1. It is not in the Bible. There is not a single verse that even hints we should say a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts. Some use Rev. 3:20. To tell us that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts begging to come in.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” There are two reasons that interpretation is wrong.
The context tells us that the door Jesus is knocking on is the door of the church, not the human heart. Jesus is not knocking to enter someone’s heart but to have fellowship with His church.
Even if the context didn’t tell us this, we would be forcing a meaning into the text (eisegesis). How do we know it is our heart he is knocking at? Why not our car door? How do we know he isn’t knocking on our foot? To suggest that he is knocking on the door of our heart is superimposing a meaning on the text that simply does not exist.
The Bible does not instruct us to ask Jesus into our heart. This alone should resolve the issue, nevertheless, here are nine more reasons.
2. Asking Jesus into your heart is a saying that makes no sense. What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will He somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does He reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it. Pastor Dennis Rokser reminds
us that little children think literally and can easily be confused (or frightened) at the prospect of asking Jesus into their heart.
3. In order to be saved, a man must repent (Acts 2:38). Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance.
4. In order to be saved, a man must trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31).
Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of faith.
5. The person who wrongly believes they are saved will have a false sense of security. Millions of people who sincerely, but wrongly, asked Jesus into their hearts think they are saved but struggle to feel secure. They live in doubt and fear because they do not have the Holy Spirit giving them assurance of salvation.
6. The person who asks Jesus into his heart will likely end up inoculated, bitter and backslidden. Because he did not get saved by reciting a formulaic prayer, he will grow disillusioned with Jesus, the Bible, church and fellow believers. His latter end will be worse than the first.
7. It presents God as a beggar just hoping you will let Him into your busy life. This presentation of God robs Him of His sovereignty.
8. The cause of Christ is ridiculed. Visit an atheist web-site and read the pagans who scoff, “How dare those Christians tell us how to live when they get divorced more than we do? Who are they to say homosexuals shouldn’t adopt kids when tens of thousands of orphans don’t get adopted by Christians?” Born again believers adopt kids and don’t get divorced.
People who ask Jesus into their hearts do. Jesus gets mocked when false converts give Him a bad name.
9. The cause of evangelism is hindered. While it is certainly easier to get church members by telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts, try pleading with someone to make today the day of their salvation. Get ready for a painful response. “Why should I become a Christian when I have seen so called Christians act worse than a pagan?” People who ask Jesus into their hearts give pagans an excuse for not repenting.
10. Here is the scary one. People who ask Jesus into their hearts are not saved and they will perish on the Day of Judgment. How tragic that millions of people think they are right with God when they are not. How many people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord” on judgment day will be “Christians” who asked Jesus into their hearts?
So, what must one do to be saved? Repent and trust. (Heb.6:1) The Bible makes it clear that all men must repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Every man does have a “God shaped hole in their hearts,” but that hole is not contentment, fulfillment and peace. Every man’s heart problem is righteousness. Instead of preaching that Jesus fulfills, we must preach that God judges and Jesus satisfies God’s judgment…if a man will repent and place his trust in Him.
If you are reading this and you asked Jesus into your heart, chances are good you had a spiritual buzz for a while, but now you struggle to read your Bible, tithe, attend church and pray. Perhaps you were told you would have contentment, purpose and a better life if you just ask Jesus into your heart. I am sorry, that was a lie.

Burning Idols

Let's get down to the point. I have idols. I have high places. Places that most of us imperfect heathen wretched sinners have and had. Places we have burned are burning or are really struggling with tearing down right now. The trick is finding them. And that is what this post is about.

Recently, I read in a blog something Evangeline Johnson wrote about Titus 2:4-5 the verse that reads what the elder women are to teach the younger, "that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed." Praises to God for allowing me to read that when I did because not even two days later I was reading Facebook stats and replying to my posts and pictures. Hours passed by within minutes. That was when my eyes gazed down on Josh. He was covered head to toe in black sharpie marker. AND HE WAS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME! On the floor granted but right there by my side! His clothes were drawn on, his pillow, his arms and legs and face all covered in black marker.

Suddenly a sea of bible verses poured inside the nautilus of my ear. Proverbs 29:15 was the first, "A child left to himself brings shame to his mother." Then Deuteronomy 6:7 concerning the teachings of our Lord, "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." What was I teaching Josh at this moment? He has no idea what Facebook is but he sat next to me because he loves me and wanted to spend time with me. So where was my time spent? What was I loving at the moment? That was when Titus 2:4 entered the party. Evangeline brought up a good point about this verse. The word used for love in the excerpt about our children philoteknos translates "to be a friend to your children."

God is amazing. I love those "Aha" moments concerning our God. Facebook was cancelled. And for added insurance, my blessed husband double blocked it from the computer. It truly became an idol for sometime before it was torn down. Now the goal is to spend time with my kids being friends and doing something together in lue of time I would have spent on the computer.

I have bad days but the kids and I have had a blast hanging out together and doing things together. There is a collection of blog posts in my head filled with our fun adventures: paper crafting, making puppets, sewing basics and cooking healthy but creative kids snacks (My Big Girl has asked to take over this feature on here.) I haven't posted them because it is hard to find time that I can step away without deterring into a sea of hypocrisy similar to the previous idol.

If you bear with me, please do, I would love to tell you about the things the kids and I have learned together. Then maybe you can do them with your kids, or siblings, or kids you watch because honestly, it's good fun making friends with your kids.

And just as refreshing as burning idols...

The Fall

At a creation/evolution debate I attended many years back, I heard this story. In the story a man sits on his rooftop and prays for God to save him from the flood he finds himself in. Moments later a boat arrives. The man shoes the boater off, "My God will save me." he declares. Then a helicopter arrives and receives the same treatment, "My God will save me!" the man calls out. Meanwhile the waters climb up the sides of his house and his roof sinks lower and eventually he drowns. In heaven, he asks God, "Why didn't you save me?" God says, " I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter and you refused both."

Well, on Saturday morning I was that man. My circumstances have given me three different situations telling me that I am no longer fit to bear babies the last being a vascular surgery I need on my legs but if I take the surgery the baby making stops. So, I was in prayer, "Lord, I really want more babies. If I can have more babies please send me a huge sign that loudly proclaims this as possible. I am a ditz Lord and I need it told to me in a very big way what you intend for me to do."

And guess what? He did. I was in my kitchen prepping breakfast when it happened. I fell on a large puddle of water from the cooler. And I fell hard. I landed right on the vein that was supposed to be removed. It hurt something terrible and swelled up to the size of my fist. I could barely take off my restricting pants. Later on, it receded but left behind is a plum colored bruise about 4 inches square. It hurts to walk, to stand from sitting, to shower. Pain is my new shadow. Lurking around every corner. But I know that pain is my body arriving in a helicopter or a boat telling me something is up and I need to fix it.

Now, surgery is inevitable. The next day, I heard my pastor proclaim the good news that he and his wife were expecting. He was so elated you couldn't help but partake in the celebration. This just goes to show the sovereignty of God. While he closes one womb he opens another. I have learned to be content with what is before me and instead of fighting all those the Lord is sending me in efforts to help, I will accept it. Thank you Father for answering my prayer...before I sunk any deeper.

Responsive Breastfeeding

Yesterday, I was thumbing through my Above Rubies magazine. Half calling out to my hubby in the other room about the days events, halfheartedly flipping through the pages and looking at the pictures. That's when I saw an article I needed to see for a long time. I paused and read it. The woman writing was me! Anemic; yes, struggled with breastfeeding; yes, scheduled feedings; yes, tired, not enough milk, skinny babies, yes, yes, YES!
My precious baby is almost six months and she hasn't gained any weight. I have been toying with formula. Do I? Do I not? When I pump I see nothing. So busy being about in my Martha duties trying to figure out how I can squeeze in feeding my baby and HERE is the solution! So, I read with great enthusiasm then hopped off the bed and practically tackled my husband. "Look at this!" I said shoving the magazine in his face, "This is me!" I scurried off, "Quick, where is your iPad I need to find out about Responsive Breastfeeding!"
Please, I implore you to follow this link to this amazing blog I found of a Supermom (seriously, she is) and her writings in regards to Responsive Breastfeeding.

If you have these woes, this can help!
http://lanaeandbaby.blogspot.com/2009/10/responsive-breastfeeding-part-1.html

His and yours,
Celi

The Basketball Diaries: A Powerful Testimony from Susan Yenser

Conviction can come in many forms. This day conviction came to me when I was washing my dishes. Todd Friel's Wretched Radio podcast was playing in the background when I heard her voice.. It was amazing. Beautiful and strong. A young woman, a basketball star named Susan Yenser. She played for the Clemson Tigers

Here is the YouTube video with the full testimony, over seventeen minutes long.


I pray God touches your heart the way He did mine after hearing her speak.