Getting to Denver and the best burger sauce

We sat in our grayish-blue plane seats, waiting to roll back from the gate when the dreaded announcement came.

"Due to weather, Denver has stopped all inbound flights at their gates until they can further assess. They will let us know more in a half hour."

OK, a half hour, not so bad.

After that half hour --- "Denver is not allowing us to take off right now. They will make a decision in 90 minutes."

We only had two full days in the Denver area with our friends, and the weather where we were wasn't getting any better either.

Lord, please let us get to Denver tonight.

The minute the thought crossed my mind, I felt guilty. There are so many people worse off than maybe having a trip canceled due to a storm. All the Christians suffering in the Middle East and China certainly had more important requests of our great Father.

But, does that mean that God doesn't care? I honestly don't think it does. I think God cares about everything we care about, and that means even my menial request to go have fun with our friends like we had planned.

It put our trip into perspective though. If it got canceled, we would deal with it. It would be fine. Our lives would not end. I said a prayer for the people throughout the world much worse off than me, turned on the Iowa game and hoped for the best.

It wasn't 90 minutes later, it was more like two hours, but we did take off. We did get to Denver safely, and we did have a fun weekend with our friends.

Thank you Lord for that blessing.

Although there isn't one in Denver, one of our absolute must-stop-at places when we're traveling anywhere there is one, is In-N-Out.

Their burgers and fries are so good. And that is coming from someone who doesn't really enjoy fast food, and who rarely finds it even worth it to eat out.

The sauce takes the cake, and I say that even though it is mayonnaise-based, and I don't like mayonnaise, in general.

So when I stumbled across a copycat recipe on Pinterest and paired it with my homemade hamburger buns, which were also an absolute game-changed for our house, I was excited to try it.

It is now my husband's favorite homemade burger.

We make our burgers pretty simple, with ground beef or ground venison, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. With this sauce, you don't need anything else. Top the burger with American cheese, this sauce, iceberg lettuce and place it on a grilled homemade bun.

I promise you won't be disappointed.

Copycat In-N-Out Burger Sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1/2 tsp. rice vinegar (you can use regular vinegar too)
1 Tbsp. dill relish (or chopped dill pickles)

Mix all the ingredients together and chill. Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Sometimes life makes no sense

If God is really God, then it makes perfect sense that at times God makes no sense.

If God was small enough for us to always understand him, then he wouldn't really be God. He would be too small. He wouldn't have enough power, enough knowledge, enough wisdom, enough foresight. If we could comprehend all that God does, then we wouldn't even need a God. Humans would be plenty powerful enough on our own.

However, God is big enough. He works in ways that we just don't understand.

If I had looked at my future, I wouldn't have placed myself where I am today. Yet, I am so grateful that I am where I am.

That's my continuous prayer, that God continues to lead me and Nate to places that we wouldn't imagine right now but where we go "God had a plan all along. I'm so grateful for where we are now."

It's nerve-wracking. We want to know the future. We want to know how to make correct choices right now. We want to know how to plan for where we're going.

But we can't.

We have to take one step at a time in faith. When we find ourselves in places we don't want to be but don't have a choice, like illness, God says, "Don't judge me. Don't judge my character for not working in your time table. I know what's going to happen. I'm working everything out for good."

It might not be good in our time. It might not be the good that we expect, but it is for the good for God's great plan.

I heard a pastor talk about this topic and how Habakkuk wanted to understand all that God was doing during his time. He begged God to explain what was happening, but God said, "You won't understand." Habakkuk continued to ask for an explanation, so God gave it to him, but Habakkuk responded, "I don't get it."

God knew he wouldn't get it. God knows we won't get it. Our brains are too small. Our visibility is too current. God sees the big picture. He has a great plan. We just have to trust him to execute and take it one step at a time, trusting him to guide us along.

Let me guide you along in one of my new recipes. Trust me, it's delicious.

Crab rangoon pizza
1 pizza dough (I make mine with the Better Homes & Gardens recipe, you might like a store-bought dough/crust)
8 ounces cream cheese
4 ounces imitation crab
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 cups mozzarella
2 corn tortillas or wonton wrappers, whatever you have on hand
1 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. sweet chili oil

1. Begin by making the pizza dough. Press it onto a cornmeal-covered pizza pan, prick with a fork and bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes until partially done.
2. Remove from oven. Spread crust with softened cream cheese, sprinkle on green onions and flakes of imitation crab. Cover with mozzarella.
3. Bake for about 20 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.
4. While baking, heat oil over medium heat in a small skilled. Slice corn tortillas or wonton wrappers into strips. Fry until golden brown and crisp. Remove from oil and place on paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle with salt.
5. When pizza is finished, remove it from the oven and sprinkle with tortilla strips and drizzle with sweet chili oil.

Loving differences, except those people who don't like chocolate

Nate and I watched a video yesterday about how country music is trying to become pop.

Listen to the background "Clap, snap" beats or the snare highlights, and they do sound a whole lot alike. The video said that basically musical genres are saying they are trying new things and bringing in sounds from different genres, creating music that is more diverse than ever before. However, it's actually becoming less diverse. Everything sounds the same.

We looked at each other with wide eyes. It sounds a whole lot like our society. People are claiming that we're celebrating diversity by being "open" to everything and people become less different. Yet, it seems that forcing people to all have the same views and act the same is not celebrating diversity but is actually make us less diverse.

Seeing differences between people isn't a bad thing. Having different cultures, different viewpoints, discussions about what we believe and why is good --- it's open and diverse. Not everyone has to think the same or like the same things.

I like to cook. And bake. A lot.

There are a lot of people that don't.

There are people that spend all their free time bird watching. I don't.

There are people that love to play pool. I don't.

We're all different, and that's the way that our God created us. He loves us all, no matter who we are, where we live and what we enjoy. He offers forgiveness to all of us equally through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, because we're all sinners.

We don't all have to be the same, think the same, have the same down beats and upbeats. I think seeing differences is good, and being able to talk about our differences and compromise through our differences is also good.

However, I did hear one difference a couple of weeks ago that I think is ridiculous. That difference is that some people don't like chocolate.

Those people are just wrong.

So for those who are right, I'm sharing my favorite brownie recipe. I hadn't found a homemade brownie recipe that I really loved until I saw this one from King Arthur Flour on Instagram. I learned that the ratio of sugar to flour has to be way beyond what I would have imagined for a truly fudgy brownie experience.

Then I wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day by making the brownies more festive, so here's what I did to doctor my brownies. You'll need:

1/2 cup of white chocolate chips
1 plastic piping bag
1 heart-shaped cookie cutter
Heart sprinkles

Make your brownies according to instructions on the linked website above. Line your 9x13 cake pan with aluminum foil, enough to grab onto to lift your brownies out after they have cooled. Bake and cool about 10 minutes.

Lift your brownies out and let cool completely.

Use your heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out your brownies. Flip the cookie cutter upside down every other one so that you can get the most out hearts of your brownies.

Eat the scraps!

Melt your white chocolate chips and put into a piping bag. Cut the tip off of the bag, leaving just a very small opening.

Drizzle white chocolate over your brownie hearts, and place a couple of heart-shaped sprinkles on your brownies.

It's a simple way to take a plain, yet delicious, brownie and spice them up for the holiday!

The polar vortex is a lot like life

Last week a polar vortex hit the Midwest, and that meant crazy cold temperatures --- I mean -60 degrees windchill temperatures.

And that meant time spent inside for most of us.

When I woke up on Saturday, it was 35 degrees, and the outside was calling me. We were out of coffee, and I had a gift certificate to a coffee shop two blocks away, so I decided I would just walk there to get an americano.

While I was walking, I was thinking how that polar vortex really resembled life.

That's because, one of my first thoughts was, "Lord, thank you for cold temperatures that make 35 degrees seem so warm."

There's nothing quite like a 90-degree increase in temperature in the winter, and although I didn't enjoy the freezing cold, it did make what would seem cold to some feel super warm. Life is a lot like that too, the hard times make us appreciate when times are good.

I think of a post by a friend who is going through cancer right now. She is going to have surgery to remove a tumor, and it has a lot of terrible side effects, but her response was "But I'll be alive!" She is going through a terrible time, but those struggles have so made her appreciate life, and that is truly a blessing.

There's nothing quite like the cold that makes you appreciate the warmth.

As I was walking, a breeze picked up. However, it didn't bother me, because I had probably over-prepared for being outside after the frigid temperatures last week. I had on fleece-lined leggings underneath my jeans, and I had on a T-shirt and sweatshirt underneath my heated coat. The breeze was chilly, but I had prepared, so it wasn't too bad.

When bad times in life come at us, we learn from them. We learn to overcome those times. We learn to prepare for those times so that next time, the bad isn't quite so bad.

When you're prepared for the cold, it isn't so terrible.

The polar vortex is a lot like life. And I'm thankful for quiet moments on walks that let me think through things like that.

Breakfast crescents

After a long while of being expensive, eggs were finally on sale in January.

So I stocked up.

There's nothing better for cheap protein than a dozen eggs for 77 cents.

However, once I had four dozen eggs, I had to figure out what to do with all of them. I grew up with a family crescent roll recipe that I would sometimes stuff with pizza toppings or ham and cheese, so I thought I would combine that with an egg-stuffed bread recipe that my brother has made before.

Couple that with 88-cent pork sausage, this is one cheap breakfast that I can pop in the fridge and warm up as needed this week.



Ingredients
Crescent dough
3/4 cup milk
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/8 cup sugar
1/4 cup hot water
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 egg
3 1/2 cups bread flour

Filling
6 ounces pork sausage
7 eggs
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1. Make the crescent dough first. Melt butter in small saucepan, add milk and sugar. Bring to approximately 110 degrees. While the butter is melting, mix water and yeast. Let proof.
2. Add egg to milk mixture. Add to yeast mixture.
3. Mix with 3 cups of flour. Turn onto surface and knead with additional flour for five minutes.
4. Place in bowl and rise in warm place until double.

5. Meanwhile, cook pork sausage. Add eggs and scramble. Let cool slightly in pan.

6. When dough is risen, punch down and portion in half. Roll each half out onto a floured surface into a circle. Cut into eight triangles. Place egg mixture at the widest part of each triangle and sprinkle with cheese. Roll into crescent shape. Pinch ends to secure filling. Place on baking sheet with point down to secure.
7. Continue with all dough and filling.
8. Cover and let rise approximately 30 minutes while oven preheats to 375 degrees.
9. Bake at 375 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.

God gives us a choice to believe

I've been reading Dennis Prager's "The Rational Bible," the commentary on Exodus.

I've never read a commentary before, and to be honest, I've never really understood how to study the Bible. I've read the Bible, but when people said "I studied the Bible," I didn't get how to do it. I didn't know how to ask questions or how to get answers. So having a commentary to read through to have someone go through the meaning of verses one by one has been quite fascinating to me.

I have written some thoughts and questions down as I have read, and in chapter 10 of Exodus, I was reading about how God's plagues can be rationalized away with "natural" reasons, if people want to.

Prager wrote, "The choice the Egyptians had to make --- coincidence or God? --- is the same choice we all have to make.  Do we regard everything that happens, even existence itself, as a coincidence, or is God involved?"

I wrote in the margin that this is one of the ways that God gives us free will. Humans are allowed the choice to believe in God. He shows us instances of himself, but it doesn't smack us in the face with it in a way that takes away our choice to believe in him. We can choose whether to have faith or to reason away his existence and his impact.

Then flipping through Instagram that same day, our youth pastor and friend posted a photo from a youth conference he was at. It was a picture of a PowerPoint slide that read, "God has put enough into this world to make faith a most reasonable thing, but he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by reason alone." (Stuart Hall)

It was one of those moments when you know God is trying to tell you something, when you see the same thing in multiple places randomly and just know God is using that to teach you something.

I've also been reading "The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity" by Alex McFarland, and the reasons that people don't believe often do make sense. We can explain our beliefs, and we can prove many things, but there is an element of Christianity that takes faith. There is no way around it. God is too big. God is too unknown. Our brains are too limited.

We can't have all the answers. We can't have everything laid out in front of us. God, in his love, has given us free will, and he has given us the choice of whether we want to believe in him. He doesn't force us to love him.

And to end with another Instagram post I saw today, "Jesus died for you, knowing you might never love him back. That is true love."

We have a choice. And he's there when we choose to believe.

What a great God we have.

How was Mary feeling?

Merry Christmas!

Time flies, because I didn't realize it had been a month since I had last blogged. I thought today seemed like a good day to head online, because unlike most people, I don't have a lot to do today. My husband works a lot of holidays, so they are usually relaxing and rather uneventful. For a homebody introvert like me, that is just fine.

But yesterday we did get to celebrate. We spent some time with friends whose family is like our second family away from home, for which are so thankful. Then I went to the Christmas Eve service at our church, which was so wonderful and refreshing.

I have to admit that this time of year, even as an adult, Christmas begins with thoughts of getting gifts. We were done Christmas shopping really early to get gifts to our families since we weren't going to be them over the holiday, but it still began with "What am I going to get everyone?"

So much of our holiday revolves around what we're getting. The tree doesn't look right until it has gifts underneath it. The kids aren't satisfied unless they get the right toy.

Gift giving is fun, and if we place it in context as a reminder for the greatest gift ever received --- Jesus --- then we're doing alright.

But I had a thought yesterday at church. The pastor was talking about how Jesus was revealed to the wise men, who were from afar, and God wants to draw people even that are far away. He said Jesus was revealed to the shepherds, who were the most lowly in society, because Jesus calls even the most lowly.

Jesus' identity was also revealed to his parents, Mary and Joseph. Think of how society looked on them --- they were an unmarried couple, pregnant, and so looked down upon that no one would even give up their room to a nine-month pregnant woman.

In today's society, the pregnant woman is given a good parking spot, a good seat, and people want to help make her comfortable.

Unless she is a member of the lowest part of society and looked down upon. Then people avert their eyes. And that's what Mary had to deal with.

Can you imagine her embarrassment about how people looked at her for nine months? She knew she didn't do wrong and had an amazing gift, but it still would have been so hard to have people laugh, snicker and shake their heads when they thought she wasn't looking ---- or maybe even to her face.

Then imagine her embarrassment when she couldn't even have her baby in a room. She knew she was carrying God's son, and yet she couldn't even find somewhere to have him. She had to have him in a stable and put him in a feed trough. Manger sounds so sweet today, but it was a feed trough.

If I knew that I had the responsibility of carrying and raising God's son and couldn't put him anywhere but a feed trough, I would be so ashamed. I would be embarrassed. I would probably even be angry that God couldn't give us a better place to be.

It must have been so hard at that moment, but when we look back, we see the nativity as a beautiful story that began that night. It is a story of God's son coming to earth, living a sinless life and then taking on our sin to die for us and rise again to defeat Satan and death for those who accept his gift.

So whatever you're going through right now --- it may seem extremely hard, embarrassing or like God shouldn't be putting you through it. But God works in ways that we can't understand, and it may be thousands of years before his purpose is revealed.

When you look at the nativity, think beyond the pretty star and the sweet baby. There was so much going on. And it was the start of even more.

Merry Christmas all.

And thank you Lord for coming.