[ Devo-ted ] from me to you -

The truth about who God is heals the heart, mind and soul. 

This particular Sabbath morning brought lots of people through the door, which of course was not unusual. As I approached one of “the saints” to greet and give my best smile, without skipping a beat she told me that my skirt was too short for a pastor’s wife. In my head, I am thinking, She did not just say that, right??? OH.MY.WORD… If you know me well, you would know that I have two sides of me—one is the people-pleasing side and the other is the hit-‘em-back side. Here is where I blended the two for better or for worse, but I jokingly retorted as light-hearted as I could muster “and look, even more scandalous is that I am not wearing hose!” I gave her a big hug, kept smiling and moved along, but it had seared a wound into my heart that she would not only notice but chastise me in

I honestly really liked that little old lady who was as spunky as they come. But she had hurt me and hadn’t bothered to really get to know me before saying such things, such comments. It angered me too. What she didn’t know was that my skirt was too short at that time in my life because I had gained more weight than I care to admit during a very stressful season of “things.” My skirt was rising with my weight rising. Normally, I am fit and slender, but they didn’t know that about me. I was still new to them in that church as we were only a couple years into our pastoring there. On top of that, I didn’t have extra money to spend on bigger clothes, nor did I really want to surrender to the idea that I needed bigger clothes. To me, this was temporary though I felt like the circumstance-- the “thing”--was never going to get better. Lovely distorted thinking, right? I was struggling and no one in our church knew that. Adding a body shaming layer to it

Does your heart need healing? How’s your mindset these days? Is your soul thirsting in a desert of pain? Is there trauma? Experiences of hurt? Our bodies do keep the score. Are there “things” for you, too? I know there must be, for we are all human and we have been told that in this world we will have trials and tribulations, as John 16:33 tells us. But there is more to that declarative of trouble. There is a promise made— Jesus says “take heart! I have overcome the world.” Take heart, my sweet friends! Take heart!

Note and just soak in God’s goodness in Philippians 2:5-8: [In your relationships with one another, have the same] mindset as Christ Jesus:

Wow! Just focus your mind’s eye on this poem that is giving us a true picture of Who.God.Is! In fact, take heart!

This poem of descending down, down, down, from heaven to earth, from throne to stable, from angels to us, is showing WHO God thru Jesus is…God stooping, God lowering, God condescending—this is the overarching theme of His mindset to serve, to give! “Looking to Jesus we see that it is the glory of our God to give.” [Desire of Ages p 22]

God wants to show us Who.He.Is…He wants us to know Him. God is in the business of revealing, showing, manifesting, disclosing Himself. “So Christ set up His tabernacle in the midst of our human encampment. He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character and life. 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.'” John 1:14 [DA p 25]

As I personally take in this picture of God, this picture of Who.God.Is speaks so overwhelmingly that I have no words …I take in His healing, His love, His restoration of my soul, of my heart, and my body responds to this in regaining health and well-being to the baseline I was intended for. Interestingly enough, this same church didn’t handle my weight loss well either…overly fixated, with inappropriate comments by men, out loud, yes, I said out loud…and I know the women were whispering, too, not to me, of course…can you believe that??? Goodness, right? There is body shaming in being skinny, too. Not everyone intends goodwill, though I try to give the benefit of the doubt.

But take heart!—The revelation of God in Christ heals the human heart.

Can you see His character? Can you see His self-sacrificing love? His self-renouncing love? His love that does not seek its own? 

“Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. 'By His stripes we are healed.'” [DA p 26] Fully pause on that…

Who would do this thing? My heart thrills at seeing the character of the great Giver, and because we have the cross, we can see the depths of how far God is willing to go to GIVE—for God SO LOVES HE GAVE. 

Let that wash over you…do you see Him now? 

The Bible’s overarching theme of God’s story is— to Give. It is the glory of God to give…and as I fully absorb this, I want and need to be a giver! It is more blessed to give than to receive. Our calling is to give to each other.

“There is nothing, save the selfish heart of man, that lives unto itself. No bird that cleaves the air, no animal that moves upon the ground, but ministers to some other life.” “In these words is set forth the great principle which is the law of life for the universe. All things Christ received from God, but He took to give.” Which is “the character of the great Giver, the law of life.” [DA p 21]

Ready for healing?—the truth about Who.God.Is heals the heart, soul, mind, the human-to-God relationship. It heals the human-to-human relationship, even if only on my side of it, your side of it, because God does it, because I take to give, you take to give, to those around us. It heals. Ready for the secret, which is no secret, of how Jesus’ mind worked? —He, Who made Himself of no reputation, humble, death of self …to serve, to give! Yes! The revelation of God in Christ heals the human heart!

"In writing upon the life of Christ I am deeply wrought upon. I forget to breathe as I should. I cannot endure the intensity of feeling that comes over me as I think of what Christ has suffered in our world. He was a 'man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:...he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with His stripes we are healed' if we receive Him by faith as our personal Savior!"—Manuscript 174, 1897. [4BIO 391.1]

Take heart, my sweet friends.

Take to give, my sweet friends.

Take the truth about Who.God.Is to heal your heart, mind and soul. 

♥️Latonia

E.G. White, Letter 29, 1904, pp. 2, 3. (To J. A. Burden and wife, January 17, 1904.)

E.G.White, Prayer, p. 15.4.

Remember Becky Renner as her family grieves the passing of Nathan's young nephew, Cash.

Anonymous Sister: Health and healing, and wisdom for her medical care teams.

Take a moment to wish a friend happy birthday, congratulate her on a life event, or just let her know that you are thinking of her using the contact information linked below and the card shop links above.

Every year at Christmas or New Year's....sometimes both, we make tamales, It's a really fun tradition and so yummy!

Mama's Beef Tamales

4 cups Maseca for tamales

4 cups lukewarm broth (beef) or water

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cup regular Crisco vegetable shortening

1/4-1/2 cup California chili (the color of the tamale dough should be light red)

Mix together Maseca, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add broth and mix with your fingers until dough feels soft and moist. Measure shortening in a small bowl and beat with fork until fluffy. Add shortening to Maseca mixture and mix with your fingers until spongy, about four minutes. Add your prepared California chili sauce to tamale dough. In advance you need to prepare the chili sauce by rinsing off a three-ounce bag of California chili pods. Bring chili pods to a low boil. Cook chilies until soft. Let chilies cool. Rinse out and off seeds from the chili. With a fork or spoon scrape out the inside of the chili from the chili skins. Place the chilies in a blender and blend until smooth, you may need to add water to make a thick smooth sauce. When chili sauce is done, add the amount needed to the dough mixture. Mix dough until chili is thoroughly mixed in. The color of the dough should be light red.

Makes approximately 33 tamales.

“Growing up my mom would substitute the typical meat products for vegetarian options! We typically used McKay’s beef broth for the masa mixture. For the filling, we would typically use sliced Queso Fresco Cheese, roasted poblano chili, and vegetarian meat. In some tamales, it may be just one of those or a combination of all three! 

For vegetarian meat options, dried imitation shredded beef is the best. You can also use imitation beef crumbles, like Boca or cooked Impossible burger crumbles.

Last note, while you are making your masa, soak corn husks in water. When your masa is made, you will spread the masa in the corn husk, like how I’m doing in the picture! Fold ‘wings’ of corn husks over, with the edges overlapping and then fold the bottom up. Place upright in a steamer, positioning the tamales side by side. Cover top of tamales with a dish towel and put the top of the steamer on. Steam for ~45 min. - 1 hr, until masa is no longer soft and wet. 

Happy tamale making! “

Paradise Ranch with speaker

Mrs. Lisa Anobile

5 Chefs Restaurant for our

Hispanic Association members

"I have attached a few questions (found in the above link) that I have asked, and several questions many pastor's wives have asked me over the years. I also provided a short answer that I would probably give you."