Chapter 2 of Eugene Peterson’s book The Jesus Way is about Abraham and how his life is the beginning of the Bible’s quest to acclimate us to the way of faith. I found this chapter extremely challenging and, I hope, life-changing. It focused on God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as the culmination of Abraham’s way of faith.
One idea that stuck out to me from this chapter is that somewhere along the way of faith we realize that we are not in charge of our own lives. We must realize that the Jesus way is not about bending and using God to bless our own will but instead being bent and transformed for Him. We don’t get to arrange life on our own terms. This isn’t a new concept at all, but I guess people like me have to realize this several times before it gets through their hard head! (Or hard heart as Scripture might put it!) I love this quote and want to meditate on it daily for a while. I’m thinking of making placemats!
“We enter the lifelong process of no longer arranging the world and the people on our terms. We embrace what is given to us — people, spouse, children, forests, weather, city — just as they are given to us, and sit and stare, look and listen until we begin to see and hear the God-dimensions in each gift, and engage with what God has given, with what he is doing.”
I hadn’t realized before reading this how I had slipped into a pattern of trying to arrange my world to suit my desires, and I was very convicted by this.
Peterson goes on to say that it is easy for us to create spiritual fantasies and illusions that are mere masquerades of real faith, and the way God reveals these to us is through testing, through sacrifice. He posits that a sacrificial life is the only means by which a life of faith matures, the only way to root out our attempts to use God and to open ourselves up to receive God on His terms.
“We need testing. God tests us. The test results will show whether we are choosing the way of awe and worship and obedience (which is to say, God) or whether, without being aware of it, we are reducing God to our understanding of him so that we can use him.”
Abraham’s life shows us that a life of faith cannot be programmed or guaranteed; it just means that we put our trust in God, no matter what. “We don’t know how God will work out our salvation, only that it is our salvation that He is working out.” I love that statement. It’s easy for me to wonder and ask God why He is doing certain things in my life, but the fact is that I know. He’s already told me why. He is working out my salvation. So often, I try to see the good that all things work for through my very limited earthly lenses, but I need to just trust that all things are working for my salvation and that anything He sends is absolutely necessary for that end.
I am so excited to be able to share this dough with you today! It is such a versatile delicious, whole-grain dough that includes a serving of veggies in it. My kids are pretty good eaters, but they’ve all gone through a bad patch around age 2. And they’ve always loved pizza, no matter how good they are at eating. So when I’m worried that Littlenificent isn’t getting enough veggies or when we want to have a pizza and movie night or both, this is my go-to dough. This also makes a really nice loaf of bread that you can bake in the oven or even in a slow cooker, so when Middlenificent gets into a peanut butter and jelly rut, I make this bread and smile while she eats her veggies!
My Favorite Super-Versatile, Super-Healthy, Veggie Puree Yeast Dough
Tina Chen: Mommynificent
Recipe type: Yeast Dough
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
A versatile yeast dough that can be used for pizza, bread, rolls, and breadsticks with the added bonus of a serving of veggies! This recipe makes one loaf of bread, one large pizza crust, or two small pizza crusts.
Ingredients
½ cup barely warm water
1 teaspoon honey
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
3 ½ cups whole wheat flour, or mixture of flours (a GF mix will work)
(optional) ½ teaspoon of any or all of the following – onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, basil, Italian seasoning for pizza; cinnamon or other spices for breads and rolls; the possibilities are endless!
Instructions
Measure water in a wet measuring cup and stir in the honey and yeast. Set aside for 5 minutes.
In a stand mixer with a dough hook, add all the ingredients including the yeast mixture and knead for several minutes. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and knead with your hands for a couple more minutes, forming it into the shapes that you want. If your mixer doesn’t have a dough hook, you’ll need to knead for longer with your hands.
To bake bread, I usually use my crockpot, so once I’m finished kneading, I shape the dough and put it into a loaf pan that fits in my crockpot. I put it in the crockpot on high for 2 to 2½ hours, which includes the rising time, and it’s done! To bake in the oven, let it rise for an hour in a bowl, then shape it and let it rise in the loaf pan for another hour, then bake for about an hour.
For pizza dough, rolls, breadsticks or anything else, coat a large bowl with a little olive oil, toss in the dough turning once to coat, and cover with a tea towel. Let the dough rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until large and poufy. Shape into your desired form and bake for about 20 minutes. This time will vary depending on what you are making so keep an eye on it in the oven. For pizza dough, you can prebake the crust for about 10 minutes if you like it more crispy. Otherwise, it makes a nice soft crust.
As I said, this is a very versatile dough. Not only do I use it for a wide variety of baked goods, but I’ve also had a lot of success varying the flours that I use. Most often, I use whole wheat, but I’ve done half and half whole wheat and all-purpose which makes it rise quite a bit more. One time, I started making it, only to realize I only had about half a cup each of whole wheat and white flour. I grabbed our oats to grind some oat flour and only had about half a cup of that too! I threw those in and went for the brown rice flour, of which I only had one cup. Yes, it was time for a shopping trip, but my yeast was already proofing, so in desperation, I pulled some barley out of the cabinet and ground it in my Korean fake Magic Bullet to make up the rest of the flour needed. I was skeptical that pizza crust would even turn out, but it was amazing! We loved it. This recipe also works well for pizza and breadsticks with my gluten-free flour mix, but I’ve never tried to make a loaf of bread with that. Please let me know in the comments if you do.
You can also vary the veggies you put in the dough. We use butternut squash or pumpkin more often than not, but beets make a lovely pink dough and cauliflower is good for white bread lovers. Spinach and broccoli taste great but the color is a little off-putting in my opinion.
Here are a few process pictures in case there are any of you that are scared of yeast doughs. It’s really not that bad once you get going! You can do it!
This is what the yeast mixture should look like after five minutes. If you don’t get this nice foamy texture on top, your yeast might be dead.
All the ingredients in the bowl: (I used pumpkin puree for this batch.)
Mixing it with the Kitchen Aid dough hook:
Shaped into the bread pan and sitting in the slow cooker:
Shaping into pizza crust: (I just press it into the pan, but you could form it then set it on the pan.)
Finished products – pizza dough, bread, then a picture of breadsticks:
And finally, a picture of Littlenificent enjoying a cinnamon breadstick with her soup for lunch.
I really hope you will try this dough and that your family will enjoy it as much as we do! Please let us know what you think in the comments!
It’s time for Five Minute Friday again! Five minutes of writing on a one word prompt. No editing. Just whatever comes out of our hearts. It’s amazing to see how just one word can draw out things that we’re already processing inside. The girls are joining me again as they have really enjoyed it the last few weeks AND WE’RE SO EXCITED TO TELL YOU: We are hosting a link-up for Five Minute Friday Kids’ Edition over at Desperate Homeschoolers! So please consider having your kids do their own five minutes of writing and link up with us over there! Here goes:
And START:
Listen
So much comes to mind when I hear the word “listen.” But I think at the forefront is how easy it is to slip into the bad habit of hearing without listening. Especially with my kids. Sometimes, it seems like the noise is so constant and, of course, I’m hearing them, but so often, I’m afraid that I am not really listening. Listening to their hearts.
I want to be the kind of mom who really knows my kids’ hearts, but how can I be that mom if I don’t really listen to them when they talk to me. Usually, people reveal their hearts in the midst of the mundane, but it’s so easy for me to tune out during the mundane times, thinking that I’ll really listen when it’s an important time. But I do know better, when I really stop and think. When I stop and listen to that still small voice inside of me.
Listening. It seems like it’s becoming more and more of a lost art. In our house, our smart phones help us with so many things, but they do not help us to listen. We try to segment our days into the times when we’ll work, when we’ll do school, when we’ll read, when we’ll play games, but I forget that I need to be listening during all those times.
Listening, not only to my kids, but also to my husband, and also to my God. Listening. I love the story of Samuel. When God called him and he kept thinking it was Eli. And Eli’s instructions to him when he finally realized what was going on. To tell God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I read once somewhere that the Hebrew word for listen involves the idea of obedience, so an apt translation of that verse would be, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening and ready to obey.” I want that to be the cry of my heart throughout all the parts of my day, mundane or otherwise. Spiritual times and “regular” times alike. “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening and ready to obey.”
It seems that more and more, my cooking style consists of a growing collection of sauces that can go with several different meat or vegetarian choices and be served over rice, another grain, noodles, or potatoes. It’s simple, and yet I find that if I master just 10 sauces that can go with 5 meat or vegetarian choices, that will be 50 different meals! Some examples of this are my Moroccan sauce that can have chicken, egg, beans, or other options over rice, millet, or toast. And a reader favorite, Ayam Kapitan – while it is traditionally served with chicken over rice, that sauce is fantastic with shrimp or fish and tastes great on a baked potato!
Today, I want to share another of my sauces, and this one will take your taste buds on an instant trip to a tropical island paradise! But this time, it will be Jamaica instead of our lovely home, Penang! This sauce is divine with mango, cilantro, and toasted coconut on top, but if you don’t like or can’t get any of those things, you can substitute mandarin oranges and parsley, and it will still be yummy! If you have a Jamaican curry powder blend, you can use two teaspoons of that in place of the list of spices in this recipe. If you don’t have all of the spices listed, it’s okay – just use the ones you have. It will still be delicious!
A fruity, tropical Jamaican curry sauce that goes well with chicken, shrimp, fish, and veggies.
Ingredients
2 pounds chicken, shrimp, fish, broccoli, cauliflower, or carrots or some combination of the above
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped or pureed in the blender
2 fresh red chilis, seeds and veins removed, chopped or pureed in the blender
½ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. ground coriander
¼ tsp. cumin
¼ tsp. ground mustard seed
¼ tsp. ground anise seed
¼ tsp. ground fenugreek seed
½ tsp. ground turmeric
⅛ tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
2 cups chicken broth
1 14-ounce can (400 mL) coconut milk
1½ cups mango juice (the purer the better)
Toppings
toasted unsweetened coconut
diced mango
chopped cilantro
Tabasco sauce and/or crushed red pepper
Instructions
Chop whatever you’re going to want in the sauce as well as your onion and red chilis. If you want to puree the onion and chilis, do it now.
Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok. A cast iron dutch oven works really well for this too. Cook the onions till soft if you haven’t blended them.
Lower the heat to medium, and add the red chilis and all the spices to the hot oil (and onions if they’re there). This is your curry paste. Cook it for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the chicken or other meat and cook until it’s mostly done. Carrots and other veggies that take a while to cook should also be added here if you want them.
Add the broth, coconut milk, and mango juice, and bring it to a boil on high heat for about 5 minutes. Add any quick-cooking veggies, like broccoli, cauliflower, or frozen peas at this point.
Simmer on low heat until everything is tender and cooked through.
Serve over rice. Top generously with diced mango, chopped cilantro, and toasted unsweetened coconut. Add Tabasco sauce and/or crushed red pepper for more heat. Enjoy!
Much like most international fellowships in the world, ours here in Penang tends to scatter throughout the world for the summer and then regather when the school year starts up again in August. Our shepherd had what I think is a really great idea for us to stay connected and maybe even connect in new ways throughout the summer. We are reading through the Gospels and reading the book, The Jesus Way, by Eugene Peterson together, and he has created a reading schedule and a blog where we can discuss the book and what we are learning as we go through it. Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea, even if we weren’t scattering for the summer. As a mom of little people, I rarely am able to connect well with people on Sunday. I feel scattered and usually have to nurse and I’m honestly doing really well if I’m able to connect with the Lord during that time. Connecting with people is a major bonus that may or may not happen on any given week! So having an avenue for connection that I can participate in while I’m at home nursing or on my computer late at night after everyone’s in bed really excites me.
I missed the original announcements that we were doing this. (See my note above about being scattered on Sunday mornings!) So I got started a week late. I am absolutely loving this book, and I’m also loving having a Bible reading plan with a little built-in accountability. Knowing that I’ll get behind really helps me do my Bible reading when I don’t feel like it! So far, I love the book so much that I have more to say than is really cool to say in the comments section of someone else’s blog. (Who wants to read a comment that has five or more paragraphs, right?) So I thought I would do a post each week of my thoughts, and then maybe I’ll just share a summary of them on his blog. I think everyone there will appreciate that!
The premise of the book is that Jesus being the Way as he claims to be in John 14 means much more than His just being the way to heaven; it means that He is the way we need to live each moment of our lives. This seems really obvious to me now that I’ve read it and written it, but I have to admit, it felt like a pretty revolutionary thought when I first read it. The Lord has been teaching me a lot lately (from the books The Peacemaker and The Transforming Power of the Gospel primarily) about how the Gospel is not just for getting saved but for living every moment saved. I think this is kind of the same idea, just said using the “Way” metaphor. It is good for me to hear it in a new way. I’m really looking forward to reading this book!
Here are a few thoughts and quotes from the Introduction and chapter 1 and why they stuck out to me:
The first three commands Jesus gave were repent, believe, and follow. He is the Way we do each of these things. Peterson quotes a Puritan preacher as saying that God loves adverbs and cares very much about the “how” of what we do. I love that! God loves adverbs. (That will definitely come up in Bignificent’s grammar class this year!) Peterson says we all too often slip into the trap of trying to do these things in our culture’s way instead of in Jesus’ way. We focus on impersonal results with a consumer mentality, depersonalized into principles and strategies but Jesus didn’t and doesn’t. Very challenging for me!
Peterson talks a lot about the differences between “ends” and “means” – the results and the how we get there – and says that our culture allows us to justify the means if we attain the ends, but the Jesus way doesn’t. I knew this, but I had never considered that the “means” are harder to acquire than the “ends” are. I’ve often wondered how I can be so committed to “reaching the unreached,” and I know that I really am committed to that in the deepest parts of my heart, but then I struggle so much to actually talk about Jesus with my waiter or my hairdresser. How can this be? Peterson has a quote here that is really helping me to understand this… and hopefully change!
“Setting the goal requires little effort, no commitment, and no skill. But finding the means for reaching the goal, achieving that identity, is a matter of diligent concentration, responsible perseverance, and keep discernment.”
It makes so much sense! In this too, I must follow Jesus! My commitment to the ends is not enough. I have to follow Him THROUGH to get there. Peterson even goes so far as to say that…
“The devil is content to leave the matter of ends – the goal, the purpose, the grand work of salvation – uncontested. His tempting is devoted exclusively to ways, to the means that are best suited to accomplish the end to which Jesus is the way.”
Wow! As I look at my life, that rings so true! I rarely if ever feel tempted to change my mind about Jesus or to stop believing that the world needs Him. But, oh, the temptations to go my own way about the means! To make my own decisions about how I’ll spend MY time and MY money. To make my own decisions about who I’ll talk to today and what we’ll talk about.
In chapter 1, Peterson looks at the temptation of Jesus and how this is exactly what Satan did there. He didn’t challenge Jesus’ mission to meet needs, save humanity, and be worshipped; he challenged the way Jesus would do those things. Peterson warns that Satan will always tempt us, as he tempted Jesus, to reduce God – to reduce Him to something we use, something we consume rather than Someone we follow. To reduce Him to something we use to do good, something we use as a hedge against boredom, something we use to escape or experience a thrill, something we use to control our families and our world, something we use to get peace or justice.
But God won’t be used. He won’t go about achieving His ends in Satan’s impersonal ways. He is not a “something.” He is Someone – Someone who always works in personal ways, never impersonally interfering from the outside! Peterson goes so far as to say that…
“Every time that we embrace ways other than the ways of Jesus, try to manipulate people or events in ways that short-circuit personal relationships and intimacies, we are doing the devil’s work.”
My first reaction to this was a bit of horror, immediately seeing ways that I reduce Jesus daily and the ways that I try to short-circuit personal relationships and intimacies. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! My next reaction was a pragmatic “Let’s make a list of the Jesus way of doing things so I can get this right” reaction. But that’s still a reduction!!! Jesus is a PERSON, not a list, not a slogan or a bunch of principles or strategies! The way to learn the Jesus way is to walk with Him through the Gospel narratives, to “enter by imagination and faith and prayer into the story…and get a feel for what is involved, the relationships that make up the web of this way.”
And that’s why we’re also reading through the Gospels at the same time! I’m so glad our shepherd made the reading plan this way! I need to immerse myself anew in the Gospels. I don’t know Jesus as the Way well enough, but I WANT TO! And that’s a good place to start!
We’ll be reading chapter 2 and Matthew 15-21 this coming week! If you’d like to join us, please do. I can hardly wait! Here’s the link to the book one more time in case you want it: The Jesus Way. I can hardly wait to get started for this week!
It’s time for Five Minute Friday again! Five minutes of writing on a one word prompt. No editing. Just whatever comes out of our hearts. It’s amazing to see how just one word can draw out things that we’re already processing inside. The girls are joining me again as they have really enjoyed it the last few weeks AND WE’RE SO EXCITED TO TELL YOU: We are hosting a link-up for Five Minute Friday Kids’ Edition over at Desperate Homeschoolers! So please consider having your kids do their own five minutes of writing and link up with us over there! I also thought it would be fun to pick a photo each week before writing time and then try to somehow link them together in my five minutes of writing once I find out the word for the week. So here goes:
START:
Fall is a hard word for me to write about. I’m sitting here torn with indecision about whether I want to write about it as a verb or as the season. I think I’m going to go with the season. Living in the tropics, fall is probably the only thing other than people that I actually miss from home. I LOVE living here in Malaysia, but when September rolls around, I always start feeling just a tad homesick. My mom is sweet and often sends me pictures of their trees changing because she knows how much I love it.
The picture above of me and the girls shows the beauty we got in exchange for fall, and most days, I think it’s worth it. But there are those occasional times when I miss the things I’ve given up to move here.
All change in life is like that – there are always trade-offs. And I can either choose to focus on the good that I got or wallow in what I lost. I’m not saying it’s not okay to miss things and people, but I never want to become the kind of person that is always complaining about what’s not where I am. I want to be the kind of person that exudes contentment with where I am, what I’m doing, and who I am. Contentment that flows from a heart full of gratitude. So next time I miss fall, I’ll go take a walk by the beach and count my blessings. There really are so very many of them!
This week, due to my love for watching tennis and the fact that the French Open is on, I only finished reading one book. I am about halfway through several others so maybe next week’s list will be longer. We’ll see. The French Open is still going, after all.
Anyway, the only book I read this week was Speak Now by Chautona Havig. I’m pretty sure it would have been the best though even if I had read a few others. I really do enjoy Havig’s books. I was, therefore, so excited when she sent me a free copy of this book to read in exchange for my honest review! I think I grinned for two days straight after receiving it!
Speak Now is part of Havig’s Rockland Chronicles. The author has created the fictional metropolis of Rockland with a number of surrounding towns and suburbs. She has written a number of books and series that are set in various parts of the Rockland world. Each book or series stands on its own and many of them occur simultaneously. Characters from other series and books often show up which is kind of fun – like unexpectedly running into an old friend while you’re out shopping.
I am one of those people who REALLY hates spoilers so books like these can be very dangerous for me! I was very happy to find that the author has included on her website two suggested reading orders for all of the Rockland books. The first one keeps series together while the second breaks them apart when other books happen in the middle of their timeline. I personally prefer the first suggested reading order with only one suggested change. Havig has made the first book on the list Not a Word, which I reviewed here, but I would not suggest reading it until after the Aggie’s Inheritance series as I felt like it gave quite a bit of Aggie’s story away whereas the Aggie books don’t give away any of Not a Word.
Now, back to Speak Now. While I enjoyed reading this book, I did not feel that it was one of Havig’s best. What I enjoy most about her books are her unique characters and the way their love grows in their relationships. I think Havig is a genius at taking two “friends” who have no romantic feelings for each other and growing their relationship into a forever-kind of love. I’ve actually been shocked at the number of times she’s done this in her books and the ways she has made it unique and believable in each situation.
In Speak Now, Havig tackles the opposite approach to love, one in which the characters are strongly attracted to each other before they really even meet and have to get to know each other while fighting their temptation to go too far in their physical relationship. While I applaud her boldness in tackling this kind of falling in love and showing how it can also be handled in a godly manner, I personally didn’t enjoy it quite as much. I felt like it didn’t give her the freedom to grow her characters. Instead, we spent the book getting to know them as they got to know each other as quickly as possible so they could get married and express their love to one another physically. I found myself just a little bored at times and wanting them to just get together already since you knew that was what was coming and it was all they seemingly thought about. In my opinion, they really didn’t communicate all that well and there weren’t any real surprising twists along the way.
All that said, Havig’s stated goal in writing this book was to explore temptation in relationships and how it can only be handled in a godly way by relying on the Lord instead of man-made safeguards for protection. I feel that she met that goal brilliantly! And even though this wasn’t one of my favorites among Havig’s books, it is still well-written and she is still a fantastic author and I will continue reading and recommending her books. I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who was just looking for a great read, but I would recommend it if they confided in me that they were struggling with temptation in a relationship.
Your turn: What was the best book you read this week? Please let me know in the comments below. I’m always looking for a good book to read!
I am still struggling to increase my milk supply for Babynificent. I feel like I am nursing or pumping all the time! As I mentioned before in my Galactogogue Oatmeal post, the effectiveness and even safety of galactogogues is questioned by many, so I try to use only the ones that are good for me anyway. That way, I’m eating healthy foods, and if my milk supply gets a much-needed boost, that’s a bonus! For me, these include oats, flax seed, brewer’s yeast, walnuts, and fenugreek.
I recently was craving chocolate chip cookies. Okay, fine, I’m pretty much always craving chocolate chip cookies, but this time, I decided to actually make some, and I thought I’d try to add some galactogogues. I did some searches to see what’s out there, but since I’m dairy-free, I ended up having to do a lot of tweaking. My starting points were these recipes from Peaceful Parenting and The Humbled Homemaker. Here’s what I ended up with, and it is yummy! I actually think I like it better than my old cookie bar recipe, and that’s saying something! The kids and Daddynificent all love it too, so I think we have a winner!
An absolutely delicious, nutrient-dense chocolate chip cookie bar full of galactogogues. Great for nursing moms AND their families!
Ingredients
1½ cups whole wheat flour (or a gluten-free flour mix)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
½ cup coconut oil, softened
2 Tbsp walnut oil or more coconut oil
1 cup ground flax seed
3 Tbsp brewer’s yeast
1 Tbsp ground fenugreek seed (optional, but a great galactogogue)
⅓ cup water
½ cup white sugar or xylitol
½ cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
¾ cup chopped or ground almonds or cashews
1 cup chopped or ground walnuts
2 large eggs
1¾ cups rolled oats
2 cups mini chocolate chips OR 1 cup each mini chocolate chips and raisins
Instructions
Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.
In a large bowl, beat the oil(s), flax, brewer’s yeast, fenugreek, water, sugars, and vanilla until creamy. If you’ve ground the nuts finely, you can add them here. Otherwise, wait till later.
Beat in the eggs.
Gradually beat in the flour mixture, then slowly mix in the oats.
Mix in the chocolate chips. If you have chopped the nuts and left them quite large, you should add them here.
Dump dough into a 13×9 pan or two smaller pans and spread evenly.
Please let me know what you think of these cookie bars. You can, of course, make them as individual cookies if you prefer. They’ll probably bake for about 10-12 minutes then. Other galactogogue recipes I am currently working on include pancakes, gingersnaps, lattes, and a spice rub for meat so stay tuned! And please let me know if you have other ideas for good foods to sneak galactogogues into.
It’s time for Five Minute Friday again! Five minutes of writing on a one word prompt. No editing. Just whatever comes out of our hearts. It’s amazing to see how just one word can draw out things that we’re already processing inside. The girls are joining me again as they have really enjoyed it the last two weeks AND WE’RE SO EXCITED TO TELL YOU: We are hosting a link-up for Five Minute Friday Kids’ Edition over at Desperate Homeschoolers! So please consider having your kids do their own five minutes of writing and link up with us over there! I also thought it would be fun to pick a photo each week before writing time and then try to somehow link them together in my five minutes of writing once I find out the word for the week. I’m also going to share this post over at Ladies Holiday’s Photo Friday Blog Hop and at Create with Joy’s Wordless Wednesday in a few days so I’ll be picking my photo with those in mind. So here’s my photo: And my five minutes of writing begins here:
I’ve been thinking about the role of imagination in my spiritual life since Good Friday. I was looking for some activities to do and came across an article that talked about how necessary imagination was for spiritual development. Something about how we have to be able to imagine our lives being different than they are for any change to take place. And it said something about having our imaginations enraptured by God. I loved that! So I’ve been thinking about what that would look like in my own life. Imagining my life looking more like Jesus. Imagining how Jesus would respond to my kiddos when they’re not at their best. Imagining how Jesus would reach out to my neighbors even when the time wasn’t the most convenient.
Now, how does that relate to my picture? Hmmm… Well, I suppose imagining my life different comes first, but the next step would be actually practicing doing what my Role Model does. Just like my kids are doing in this picture. They see me bouncing our new little guy to sleep often throughout the day and when they were given mini exercise balls, the first thing they did was go and find dolls and bounce them to sleep. They were imagining their lives different than they are. And then they did what their role model (me – Yikes!) does.
So I guess that’s my challenge for this week. Imagine how Jesus would respond in each situation I face, and then practice doing it.
And STOP.
So time’s up but I wanted to share that quote I was thinking of when I was writing, so I went to find it, and here it is:
“Those filling the pews every Sunday may be full of information about God, and they may be trained to obey God, but without an imagination enraptured by God, they will be powerless to live the life he’s called them to. They simply cannot imagine living any differently than the culture around them.”
Isn’t that powerful?! It’s from an article written about Good Friday by Skye Jethani for Christianity Today. You can find the whole article here. Okay, I guess I’ll wrap it up for today. Have a great weekend!
I want to start with a disclaimer here. Christy is a personal friend of mine; we met while both living on the island of Bali. I really appreciate her heart for the Balinese people and culture as well as the initiatives she and her husband are involved in to help orphans there, including Give Bracelets. Now that I’ve read her book, Tiger Hunt!, I also just joined the affiliate program to help sell itand any further books she writes about the Island Brothers. In my opinion, it’s that good.
The book Tiger Hunt! is set in Bali, though the name of the tropical island the two boys are on is not actually mentioned in the book. The book has a unique combination of gorgeous photos and beautifully hand-drawn illustrations. I only wish there were more pictures!
The story begins with two boys hanging out with their lizard friends. These lizards are so common in Bali and throughout Indonesia that it is almost believable that one could talk to you and tell stories as the father does in this story. (A personal story about these lizards: Just after giving birth in Indonesia to my first child, I leaned back on the delivery room table and looked up to see one of these lizards running across the wall. That’s when it hit me that I was very far from home and had just given birth to a child in a hospital in Indonesia!)
Back to our story, the father lizard tells a bedtime story to his children and to the two boys explaining why there are no more tigers in Bali. In his story, however, one tiger actually remains on the island. The boys ask where that tiger is now, and the father lizard sleepily replies that the story happened long ago so the tiger is probably long gone. Unsatisfied with this answer, the boys decide that they will find this last remaining tiger themselves. The rest of the book relates their adventure, trekking through Bali and hunting for this tiger. I won’t give away the ending but will tell you that it is a very satisfying story that leaves the reader hungry for more adventures with the Island Brothers.
What I liked about this book: This is a very engaging and unique story. I found myself very interested in what would happen as it didn’t seem obvious as do so many other children’s books. My older children (ages 6 and 8) loved it and talked about the characters and their adventure for the rest of the day. My 2 year old got a little lost in the amount of text, but she was having a rough day anyway. We’ll try it again on a day when she’s feeling a little more cooperative. I like how this book is a gentle introduction to the foods, animals, and geographical features of island life. For my kids, that’s their world so they liked it for its familiarity, but I think other children would love it for its exotic setting. I look forward to gifting this book widely, and I’m feeling very inspired to write up a few of our own adventures in island life.
What I didn’t like: I didn’t have any strong dislikes at all about this book, but I do have a few wishes. I wish there were more pictures, but I almost always feel that way. It’s the old preschool teacher in me, I think. The book has 10 pictures for 16 pages of text. They are beautiful and illustrate the story well, but I’d just like more. I also found myself wishing for more about Balinese culture and its people, but I think that will likely come in future installments of the Island Brothers’ adventures. This was a good introduction. My only other wish is to know if any of the story is true. Christy mentions that the events are entirely fictional, but I found myself wondering if this was a real legend that they had heard during their time in Bali.
All in all, this is a great story for kids everywhere! It is a wonderful introduction to a part of the world that is new and exciting for many young readers. The story is also suitable for children of any religion. While Christy is a follower of Jesus and the Balinese are Hindu, religion does not enter into this story in any way so if that is a concern for you, you need not be afraid. The book can, of course, be used to give children a broader vision for the world but that is left entirely up to the parents.
You can purchase this book in pdf format for $2.99 (US dollars) from the Island Brothers website. I love how Christy says on the website that you can get the book for less than the cost of a Happy Meal! The pdf can easily be printed and bound to make a paper copy of the book. We also successfully read it on a computer, a Kindle, and an iPhone (though the text was very small on the iPhone screen.) If you click through to there from any of the pictures or links here, we will receive a portion of the cost of the book. Please share about this book with others and ask them to click through from here if they decide to buy. I hope you enjoy Tiger Hunt! as much as we did. We can’t wait for the next book!
