Greetings sisters! I pray that you are in a season where you are growing deeper in your faith every single day and that God is showing you the desires of his heart for you. I am in that very season and feel like I have growing pains from all that He is bestowing on me. There is never a dull moment if you are serving Christ in any capacity and let me tell you as a seasoned Christian, I have learned to fall in love with those treasured life lessons. You know what I am talking about! Those times God takes the ordinary and turns it into extraordinary. Those incidents you look back on and can only to shake your head in disbelief? Oh sister, do I have a funny story for you!
So picture this! It is a lazy Saturday and the hubby requests meatloaf for supper. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? Well it should have been that simple, but I am here to tell you God has a sense of humor. I have all the ingredients mixed and kneaded together in my pan and am just about to put it into the oven when, all of a sudden, I notice I don’t have my wedding ring on! I rarely take it off, but meatloaf is one of those occasions that I do. So I pause what I am doing to go to the sink where I keep a jewelry trinket box to hold my ring if I should take it off in the kitchen. It was not there, and I began to panic! I looked on the counter, checked my pocket, and double checked the breakfast bar where I had just mixed the meatloaf.

If you were a fly on the wall, you could have seen my eyes get big as saucers when I am looking in horror at my meatloaf pan. What is a girl to do? So I stick my hands down in my uncooked meatloaf to see if by some chance it had fallen off while I was squishing the mixture together. (I have recently lost a significant amount of weight and have had issues of my rings being really loose). I was about to get through the last bits of muck and yuck, when I heard the ring scratch on the bottom of the pan. I squealed! I don’t know if it was in horror or happiness, but let me tell you I squealed in the middle of my kitchen loud enough my husband was concerned and had to check on me.

Someone please tell me that I am not the only one who has silly stuff like this happen to them. I mean really, who loses their ring in a meatloaf and then almost bakes it? Oh yeah, it's me, and if you know me at all, you know the irony of it all. I laughed over it for several days and shared the story on my social media page and with anyone else who would listen. A story only meant to sound funny and get a few laughs, but then God showed up to grow my faith.

About a week later I was folding laundry and happened to glance down at my ring, and God's sweet voice swept across my heart and said to me “My love for you is like that ring. I dug into the deepest part of hell so that you could be rescued and have eternal life with me.” That will stop you dead in your tracks, let me tell ya. I became undone standing there with clothes in my hand. God in heaven loved me enough to send his son to the cross for me! I can hardly fathom it at times. I’ve heard and read the Bible story time and time again, but I just don’t know this side of heaven if I will ever comprehend it.

I will never share this funny story now without thinking about salvation and what Jesus has done for me and you. He took an ordinary meatloaf and turned it into an extraordinary life lesson for me. Jesus endured the muck and yuck of this word and then died on the cross so that we could have eternal life. You are more precious to him than any gold or silver. As matter of fact, he thinks you are to die for.

Sister, I pray that you are blessed beyond measure and I can’t wait to chat with you again. I know between now and my next appointed blog, I will have made at least one more meatloaf. Next time though, I will leave out the secret ingredient. On second thought, God's love tasted pretty good.

Love you precious friends! In Christ,
Stacie