Check out this recipe!!!

I bought this cookbook along with a bunch of others at an auction several years ago. Our nephews are coming to stay with us most of the week this week so Amanda was looking for some good recipes. She opens the book and is looking around and Garrett bumped the book and papers started falling out of the back of the book. I made Garrett go sit at the other side of the table to play and Amanda kept looking. As she turned pages, this cute little red envelope falls out. I saw that envelope and knew immediately what it was. The question was, was there anything still in it??? I picked it up and YES!!! Not only was there something in it but there was a $50 something in it! Crisp. Clean Straight from the bank. Poof, there it was! There should have been a drum roll and smoke and strobe lights! It was awesome!

Now for the significance of this. We just started tithing again. Well, Amanda did. She does the check book and she's always been more dedicated than me about that. We had slacked off about it but now that she's home with the boys and we only have one income she felt that, hey, we've trusted God this far, we had better trust him all the way. She has been giving our tithe and last night I also pulled my cash stash out of my wallet and put my secret reserve in the plate. I have auction money sometimes and I wanted to save it for something but I felt God telling me to put it in the plate just like Amanda has been feeling God tell us, "Give Me your tithe." Then today, God shows up and shows out. We both listened and did what God told us and he blesses us.

Malachi 3:10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Ryan said blog some more so....

Since Ryan is the only person who has found our blog, we'll use his awesome pictures of the boys from Hope Group this week. Luke was zonked from VBS and Garett was, well Garrett. That boy never stops having fun. Full of energy and a heart of gold. In fact, he said one of the most awesome things this week. Amanda and I were talking about what if there was another rugrat and we asked Garrett "What would you do if you had another little brother?" His answer - "I'd love on him."

He hit it right on the head, didn't he?!?! Nothing more basic than that. I think most of us thought that way when we were his age - back when we were innocent, before we'd been burned. Before we'd seen what the world has to offer us. Garrett is old enough to have started seeing just a tad of what the world has to offer us but, you know what, he still loves everyone and everything. Sure, he gets upset and mad. He's human. When it boils down to it though, his heart shines through. When he's excited to go see his friends, when he's making friends with people he's never met (yeah, you know Garrett, talking to everyone!). He doesn't want to see anyone or anything get hurt. Not even the bugs that make Amanda scream bloody murder. He's got his mamma's heart and the joy of the Lord. Always laughing, always having fun, never met someone that he doesn't like. Makes you want some of what he has, doesn't it.

2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:2-4