I had roasted a chicken on Monday. Today the juices from it became a lovely gravy that we had for dinner over a small chicken pot pie store-bought. The gravy made it almost like chicken, gravy and biscuits.
I remembered the trick to make some of the juice mixed with flour which creates a quick way to make a thick gravy when you add it back to the juices. Then you just stir it all together over the stove top on at least medium heat with a whisk. I use a flat one. Until it is thick.
I was worried that it would taste like flour paste but it actually was really good. I must have used at least three tablespoons of flour.
As you can see, we both had ice cream and used up the last two ice cream cone bowls that I've had for way too many years. Things can get buried in our pantry. They were still good however!
I've had a lot of struggle lately. But also a lot of sadness. About many things like being ill but also my cousin's husband died. They were married 43 years. My mother is the youngest of eight kids. So while my cousin is the age of others who are either Uncle or Aunt to me, she's always been a cousin.
I married later in life and I will count myself very blessed if I married 40 years to my husband. For you see he is older than I.
Sometimes it's really hard to be brave. But God is there in the hard times. God is there when you feel weak. God is there in the darkness. The one thing I know is that God keeps reminding me that He is the one who will never leave me. That God is the one stable constant in our life.
I'm very grateful for my husband. I married him knowing the statistics of marrying someone older than me. In general, I'm not afraid of that. Because I'm still young.
I looked at my writing project today. Sometimes when I go through a time of discouragement, it feels like how can I continue with it?? But then I read the beginning. And all I can say is it's still there. That when I can't write in it it waits for me. And that the beginning pages are always something that give me hope.
Some writers write everyday faithfully on schedule. I guess I'm too broken to do that. But yet a lot is written of the first draft. I think I have at over 118,000 words. And all I have to do is continue to trust God.
I'm going to the funeral for my cousin's husband. My Grandma is 96 now. My mom's oldest sister is 90 or 91. I can't remember. I'm so glad when I was in my twenties that I didn't know what it would be like now.
When I know one day I will be without my parents, my Aunts, Uncles, Grandma. It is wonderful that I had years to not think about that. They're, my parents, still in relatively good health.
But I understand more now. How fast life goes. Even though I would love to finish my writing project quickly. I know it's not possible for me. But it doesn't mean that God doesn't want it. It doesn't mean it won't be finished one day. It just means I need to be patient.
But I can tell you one of the main messages of my writing project already. It's that in the times of greatest darkness, God is there. It's that when everything feels so discouraging and you just feel like giving up, that somehow God can help you not give up.
And I guess a secondary message is that family can be a beautiful thing even when you go through such hard times.
And that even with mental illness, God is there. God can be there. God wants to be there. We just have to try to trust try to open our hearts. To remember that repentance is the daughter of Hope and the renunciation of despair.
My husband is going to take me out for Thai tomorrow, God willing, I will have one of my favorite fish dishes. A simple Curry with tilapia.
I've been enjoying eating eggs for breakfast and English muffins with peanut butter. I'm partial at times to cinnamon raisin English muffins.
I haven't had my caffeinated tea in some time because of continued insomnia. I'm slowly getting better I think.
I'm grateful for novels. For things to read. For a husband who's valiant. For a life that so many would only dream of having. For the chance to write. For a chance to again experience God's mercy. For the ability to say yes, I fail a lot but God's mercy never fails. That you don't have to be perfect before God loves you. That you don't have to be perfect. That perfection is something, ultimately, in this life, is only fully found in God. It is definitely possible to meet people in life. Who in their own way have found a type of perfection. But you can only be fully made perfect in heaven. That's the comfort while living on a broken Earth in broken bodies with broken minds, broken souls broken hearts. When we get so tired. When we can't do what we can sometimes do. When we have times of weakness. And it just seems like everywhere we look we fail. It is then that we have to remember that God is faithful. That God's love never fails. That God's light is always stronger than darkness. And that darkness can never overcome God's light.
One of the things that comforts me the most and that I hope I can testify it too. Is that God wants everyone to find their home in Him. The beautiful holy mysterious Trinity. That maybe you won't have many places on Earth that feel like home or maybe none. But God can still be that place. God always wants to be our true home and God is our true home.
No matter what with God, we have a compassionate father who doesn't injure the injured, who has mercy and compassion. Who waits for us. Longs for us keeps the light on. Hoping we'll come home.
How wonderful it is to walk this Earth. When we remember that God is walking the Earth with us and created the Earth and sees everything with the most amazing profound love that we can only dream of, but that truly exists in God. I often say the reason I believe in God is that the love shown in the gospels and from the very beginning of the Bible with creation with God saying everything he made was good. The sort of sacrificial faithful, constant, trustworthy, love. Something like that is only found in God.
And so may the God of love and mercy help us and have mercy on us and help us to take His hand and to stand again when we fall. How wonderful it is that we can trust in the mercy of God.
May God's mercy be abundant in our lives.
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