Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is one of my all time favorite recipes! Every time there is a big gathering, all of my friends request, "Those really good muffins."

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins...

To start off, you'll need 3 large bananas

Next add...

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream everything together and spoon into a muffin tin. I always line my muffin tin because I hate crisp edges, but you're more than welcome to do whatever you like!

Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the muffins are spongey to the touch.

Enjoy!

  

Believe and Be Satisfied

About 5 years ago, my very dear friend Nazra shared this with me. I must have read through this over a hundred times... but each time I read it, I can hear God's voice even more clearly than I did before.

Believe and Be Satisfied

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another. To be loved thoroughly and exclusively. But God to a Christian says,

“No. Not until you are satisfied, fulfilled, and content with being loved by Me alone, with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me, with having an intensely personal relationship with Me alone, discovering that only in me is your satisfaction to be found, will you be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you. You will never be united with another until you are united with Me. Exclusively of anything else, exclusively of any other desire or longing.

I want you to stop planning, stop wishing, and allow me to give you the most thrilling plan existing, one that you can’t imagine. I want you to have the best. Please allow me to bring it to you. You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things. Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am. Keep listening and learning the things I tell you. You just wait. That’s all.

Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry. Don’t look around at things others have gotten or what I’ve given them. Just keep looking off and up to Me, or you’ll miss what I want to show you.

And then, when you’re ready, I’ll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than any you would ever dream. You see, until you are ready and the one I have for you is ready (I am working even now at the moment to have the both of you ready at the same time), until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me and the life I have prepared for you, you won’t be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with Me. This is perfect love.

And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love. I want you to see in the flesh picture of your relationship with Me, and to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty, perfection, and love that I offer to you with Myself.

Know that I love you utterly.
Know that I am God. Believe it and be satisfied.”

Waiting on God's timing will always continue to be a major struggle for me. There have been so many times where I want to throw my hands up in the air and say, "I'm done! This is it! No more waiting!" But then I have to remind myself that God has my best interest at heart and he wants nothing more than the best for me. So if I have to wait, then for goodness sake, I'll wait. After all, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." -Psalm 27:14

Time to fly

She can fly.

Ah, don't you just love the way that sounds? It sounds like freedom. Courage. Strength. Trust. The ability to let things go and trust that God only has his best interest at heart for you. To know that no matter how awful things seem to be, that when you think if one more thing goes wrong you're just going to break down, that HE is right there beside you. He lifts you up and you FLY.

"In all their distress, he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he LIFTED THEM UP and CARRIED THEM all the days of old." -Isaiah 63:9

Those words hold so much meaning and bring in pretty huge promises. Let's break it down... God. Yes, GOD, is distressed when I'm distressed? Whoa. Hold on here. Am I really saying that the God who created the universe, placed the stars in the sky and gave us life, hurts when I hurt? That when I cry, he cries? That when I am in pain, he too is in pain?

Yep. That's exactly right. That is the God who created us and loves us beyond all understanding. And he has promised us, when all the things we deal with become too much, he will lift us up and we will FLY.