A couple of weeks ago, my brother got a phone call from an old friend that wanted to meet up. He and his wife conceded to meet for dinner, knowing full well how awkward it would be.

You see, my brother is a very different person than he was back when he was actively friends with this guy. And it’s safe to say that this particular “friend,” and his dad, were the very instruments that the enemy used to lead my brother into a path of destruction, and what I refer to as his rock bottom experience.

Sometimes we need to hit bottom though, before we recognize our own depravity and our need for God. My brother, who had been a Christian for several years, did not completely surrender his life to Him until reaching that low point. And since then, I view his life as a beautiful picture of the grace of God and redemption.

“Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves. Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it.” Romans 11:11-12

My pastor taught through this passage in Romans a couple of weeks ago, pointing out how it was in the failure of the Israelites that God’s promise to Abraham to make him the father of many nations extended to the Gentiles, and therefore to us. It really spoke to me to hear how God’s plan might, and sometimes does, include the stumbling of one people group in order to open His invitation up to others.

I recently read a quote on this passage by Mark Driscoll that I really liked: “Paul is not removing the moral responsibility of people but revealing the gloriously encouraging truth that God is bigger and more powerful than sinners and their sins, and he will, in his ultimate redemptive good, work all things for good.”*

God doesn’t just save us for our own good, but so that we can, in humility,  be a blessing to others around us. Reading those verses in Romans, I couldn’t help but imagine how the angels will rejoice when one of my brother’s friends finally comes to salvation.

It would have been so simple, not to mention comfortable, for my brother, or even his sweet wife on his behalf, to ignore that phone call, and shy away from a potentially awkward experience, brushing those “friends” off as being from a previous life, or not wanting to stoop to the level of “hanging out with sinners.” But, like Jesus, they know the power of a redeemed life.

God is so good to use even our lowest points, our mistakes and blunders and even our willful acts of obedience against Him, for His glory. He truly can work all things for good. I’m thankful and encouraged that He’s chosen to use my brother as an example of His power to save people and change them to be used for His glory, and I’m excited to see how He continues to use his story to bless others.

How powerful is the testimony of a life redeemed from the pit!

*Religion Saves by Mark Driscoll

The winner of the Cookie Craft Giveaway is #9 – Sheila.  I will contact you via email.  Congratulations!

I recently had the privilege of hosting my first baby shower for a very special friend.

The shower was quite large, we had 50 guests, so to keep the day affordable, and to bless the Mom-to-be I had several of our friends from church provide food.

I drafted a flexible menu and then asked people to pick something from the menu to make or buy, or suggest something that they thought would fit with our suggestions.

Drinks:
Tea
Coffee
Strawberry Lemonade

Food:
Tea sandwiches
Tortilla pinwheels
Bite sized brownies
Lemon bars
Cookies
Scones with jam, cream, and lemon curd
Fruit
Cupcakes
Rocky road

As well as this I made rice krispie treats (the Mommy’s favorite) as favors.  I drizzled them with melted blue chocolate (candy melts from a craft store) and tied them with ribbons and tags to match our theme colors.

The shower was great fun, and having everyone pitch in with the food made it much easier to host.  Having a theme and menu helped keep things cohesive, and give people guidance on what to bring.

This little series of mine has (obviously) become less than weekly, but whenever I have something to share, you can bet I’ll be telling you about it!

We are a leftover-loving family. Moondoggie would rather take leftover dinner for lunch over a sandwich any day! I often find that I forget about leftovers though– things go bad before I remember to eat them, especially when our fridge is full. Or, I forget how old something is and have to resort to the smelling method to check (sick!).

So, I created this cool little list to help me keep track. I just fill it in (sometimes I use the “How Much is There” category and sometimes I don’t), and then I cross off the item when it’s been eaten. It helps me visualize when we have enough leftovers to make a meal out of or reminds me to eat them for lunch!

Download the “What’s in the Fridge?” List for free!

I’d love to be able to say that every day, I accomplished this to-do list. I’m thinking about making it a sticker I can put on my new to-do list each week or else slap it up on the wall where I’ll see it all the time. I would feel very accomplished if I did everything on this list, and if I don’t get it all done, well, it serves pretty well as inspiration for the kind of life I want to lead.

This list was inspired by a post from a while back over at Joy’s Hope, one of my favorite blogs!

Congratulations to Linda, winner of the Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World giveaway. The good news for everyone else is that we have another summer giveaway this week, thanks to food columnist Emma!

I like pretty food, which probably explains why when I go on vacation half my photos are of the food I have eaten, or am in the process of eating. It also explains why the book Cookie Craft literally jumped off the shelf, into my arms, and straight to my kitchen.

I love cookbooks, but I rarely sit down and read them. This was one of the few books I sat down and read COVER TO COVER! I loved the conversational way the book flowed, the pictures, tips and wealth of experience that were contained within its covers.

Cookie Craft is described as ”Equal parts baking and colorful decorating, cookie crafting is just the thing for crafters who love to bake and bakers inspired by the possibilities in a filled pastry bag. Here are all the clever tricks and insider’s hints that will elevate your cookies to edible art.”

After reading this book, and looking at all the pretty pictures I was so inspired I went out, got me some piping bags and tips and made an army of butterfly cookies for my daughter’s first birthday party.

The instructions were easy to follow, clearly laid out, but not so structured that you felt no room for creativity (or error!)

My favorite tip from the book was to use cookie slats (pieces of ¼” thick wood) when rolling out your dough to get an even thickness on all your cookies. I am sure the guy at the store was wondering what on earth a twenty something mom with baby in arms was planning on doing with two pieces of wood (which he so kindly cut for me), but let me tell you, they are awesome!

After my first success I whipped up several batches of heart shaped cookies for the lovely girls from our youth group to decorate for Valentine’s.  Not only did they have fun doing this, but my cookies (using the basic recipe in the book) were voted the best tasting out of four recipes!

Anyway, the lovely authors of Cookie Craft, and their wonderful publisher have given me a copy of Cookie Craft to give away to one of you! And if you don’t win, I would recommend you pop over to Amazon, and pick up a copy, as I mentioned it is a totally accessible cookbook; a good read, and fun to cook from!

This giveaway will end on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at midnight, Pacific Time.

Here’s how to enter:

1. {Mandatory!} Please leave a comment telling us what your favorite kind of cookie is.
2. *Extra Entry* Blog or tweet about the giveaway and leave a comment with a link.
3. *Extra Entry* Subscribe to GGH and leave a comment telling us about it.

It is the love of God that motivates us to follow Christ’s example and enables us to loosen our grip on our plans for our lives, placing ourselves squarely under God’s loving rule each day.

–Barbara Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Woman

Bring out the bathing suits, BBQs and bunting! We’ll be hanging out by the pool today with a few friends and then over to the park for fireworks. I hope you have a great day celebrating our country’s birthday!

Last year my mom’s group read Joanna Weaver’s Having a Mary Spirit. I loved it and knew that I wanted to read it’s prequel, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (MHMW, as I’ll call it) as well.  I was stoked when I was offered the chance to review and do a giveaway! Yep, that’s right, one of my lucky readers will receive a free copy!

The title alone might hook you, which it did for me back when it first came out in 2000, when I first saw it on the bookshelves of my local Christian bookstore.  But if that doesn’t do it, then just check out the tagline: “Finding intimacy with God in the busyness of life.” I think a lot of us could admit that we definitely find ourselves in the “busyness of life” and more intimacy with God sounds dreamy and fulfilling.

Let me tell you, growing to become more intimate with our Savior is about as fulfilling as it gets, and Joanna Weaver’s book is a wonderful tool for that journey. She provides a study guide at the back of the book with questions for each chapter, designed to guide us into deeper intimacy with God and His Word.

MHMW explores the famous New Testament sister act, Martha and Mary, and how we can tend to reflect their same qualities and characteristics, both positive and negative, in our modern life. Finding the balance between worship and service is a challenge that we, especially as Christian women, are called to find. Weaver is a skilled storyteller along with a gifted teacher of the Word and I think this book will greatly bless any of you women who choose to read it!

This giveaway will end on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at midnight, Pacific Time.

*This giveaway is now closed.*

Here’s how to enter:

1. {Mandatory!} Please leave a comment telling me why you’d like to read this book at this time in your life. I look forward to reading these comments!
2. *Extra Entry* Blog or tweet about the giveaway and leave a comment with a link.
3. *Extra Entry* Subscribe to my blog and leave a comment telling me about it.

Joanna Weaver has a blog too!

I’m a big list maker.  The very mention of lists makes Moondoggie recite something about “lists of lists”- somewhere on youtube there is a funny video about that but I can’t find it right now. But I digress.

I’m a big fan of a couple of bloggers’ to-do lists, but finally decided to combine my 2 favorites (from Simple Mom and Flipflops and Applesauce) into what works best for me.

I like my new one because it’s weekly, and I don’t always like to have a separate sheet for each day, because a lot of information just gets transferred from one day’s list to the next (hmm… this may be due to my lack of productivity). I also like to distinguish between stuff that needs to get done sooner and stuff that comes to mind but can wait.

Click to download: Gidget’s Weekly To-Do List

Keep in mind that the MITs are meant to be the “most important things” that are your priorities for the day. I sort of use the right side as a dumping ground to empty my brain, and the I use the left side to organize my days and week.

I’d love to hear feedback if you try my list out!

Niagara Falls

I’m back! We returned from our whirlwind “vacation” late last Thursday night. It was the sort of trip where you need a vacation to recover from your vacation, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. We’re still working on updating the baseball blog with photo albums and descriptions of all the games we went to, and some more updates on our family blog too (if you know me in real life or we’ve at least communicated/connected online, I’d be happy to share that blog with you; just email me for details).

We were so blessed to stay with and spend time with so many friends and family members, which balanced out all the baseball nicely. Chiquita was a trooper, with a totally thrown-off schedule and a lot of car rides. She especially loved the time spent with her cousins who we only see once or twice a year.

Having the time to do that sort of trip was an unexpected blessing that we wouldn’t have gotten to experience if it hadn’t been for Moondoggie’s unemployment; we’ve been trying our best to make it more of a time of “funemployment” to use a term my brother-in-law shared with us. As frustrated as we are with the lack of job, we’re really trying to make the firm decision to live in the moment and enjoy the time we have together.

My time away helped me to realize that I need more balance and simplicity in my daily life. Being away from the computer so much gave me the much-needed reminder of how much life there is to be lived away from the computer. As I approach the blogiversary of Gidget Goes Home this summer, I’m taking some time to process, pray and determine what I want the next year to look like.

For starters, I updated my header with a fresh look, and I’m going to try to discipline myself with more writing than blogging, if that makes sense. I’ve got a couple of part-time jobs this summer and new Bible studies planned, along with lots of time to be spent by the pool and the beach. I couldn’t be happier that it’s officially summer and I’m excited to see what warmer weather brings my way.