To beat the heat wave...

Spend time with an old friend making cute looking delicious cheesecake!

Cute would not be the first word to describe cheesecake, however once you take a look at these.. I believe you would agree, cute is an apt description :)

The recipe is from "Cooking for Engineers", relatively easy and simple recipe, and best of all, only about a 30 min wait before you can taste the finished product!

Here goes:
First step is always to gather ingredients needed into one place, so you save time while you're baking, and also so it minimizes the chances of forgetting an ingredient.


Next we go ahead and mix all our ingredients together, a tip for cheesecake, let the cream cheese soften a bit before you use it. Mixing is a lot easier and your forearms will thank you :)

The childhood bestie! :) What a great model. We had so much fun with the hand held mixer...

While she was mixing, I filled cupcake tins with vanilla wafers for the crust. We ended up doing two cookies per tin, although it still didn't seem to cover or create as much crust as I would have liked... *note to self, add more cookies, or change the layout, perhaps break them apart??*









After we filled the cupcake tins, we topped it with strawberries! Delicious looking aren't they?



Towards the end, we had extra batter, but not enough strawberries... we ate them all. So I substituted nectarines to top the remaining cheesecakes


Voila! Finished delicious product. For a better cheesecake eating experience I recommend refrigerating for 5-10 mins.

That's all for now! I believe another baking date is due soon, not sure what is in store for that... suggestions are welcomed. We made white chocolate chip cookies together a couple weeks ago, but no photographic evidence was collected.

Au revoir

alliteration at its finest

Upon listening to Steve Lawson's sermon on "Who is Jesus Christ?" from Resolved 2010 heard this alliteration gem.

"Faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first."

Transitions

Since moving home, I have been challenged, and humbled many times over. Graduating college is an experience, that is like none I have experienced before. Throughout the last four years, I've basically lived at school, away from home, and forging life on my own. Though not completely independent, there were aspects of my life in which I got to choose what I wanted to do. Whatever I felt like doing, whoever I felt like talking to, making friends, and more importantly how my schedule looked everyday.

One of the biggest decisions of my life entering into college, was how important was my faith in Christ? Is that going to dictate how I live my life? Or am I placing myself first and foremost in all my relationships? Unbeknownst to me God was placing in me a desire to know Him more, and was pursuing me, even as I was running deeper into the world. There was a period of changing my world view from running to and desiring the things of the world, the success, the renown, the prestige, shifting now into investing in people, not purely for selfish reasons or gain, but for the purpose of truly loving them, with all my heart. The love that was once shown to me, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, now grew a greater desire in me to want to invest in the people around me, to know Him. Though this desire has not changed, my understanding and how this works out has definitely shifted since moving back home.

Now upon graduating, the relationships I had formed living with my three lovely apartment mates, whom I love dearly, are now changing. The convenience of simply going next door and finding fellowship, and friendship, prayer within the same building, not so anymore. The transition has been challenging, to say the least. We have all moved back to our respective homes, back into our family and our lives pre-college. Living under another authority, that is not ourselves, and sometimes not completely Christian. The concept of submission to authority, comes into play every day, some days more difficult than others [1 Peter 2:13-25]. The fellowship that once surrounded me like a bubble, now gone and no longer as easily accessible, has shown me just how dependent I was on my friends to keep my relationship with my Father right. By no means am I saying that accountability and fellowship is bad, but in my own life, in coming out of college, and moving home, I have seen my 'godliness' and sanctification would be dependent on how people viewed me, rather than the true state of my heart. An observation I have made in the last couple years, is that it is easier to be "godly and holy" around those who are also seeking the same goals as you are, who are Christian, solid in theology, and striving every day to die to their own flesh. On the other hand, being in an environment where I am not surrounded by people like that basically 24/7 forces me to check the state of my heart, and my thoughts each and every moment, and.. honestly it takes a lot more effort and is a lot more difficult.

Perhaps though it is these such transition situations that lead to greater sanctification. This mirror put before me, in the form of my life away from college, has shown me just how much I need a Savior each and every moment. How grace is needed in every aspect of my life.

What has been the most challenging about this transition is the initial uncertainty of it all. Having a plan, and then having God break it, having another plan, and then having those plans fall. The various changes in my life when moving home were:

1. Unemployment
2. Living under my parents again
3. Living and co-residing with my younger brother
4. Finding a new church
5. Figuring out future (?)

It is amazing just how little faith I had before (and only recognizing so from hindsight). In such uncertainties, I, being the 'good Christian' I was, and understanding the sovereignty of God and the providence He has, prayed. Though having no idea how He was going to answer the prayers nor if He would answer.

In view of the time away from daily fellowship with the saints, I grew to see how vulnerable I truly am, how prideful I was in just the way I approached the uncertainties... and thus my prayer life changed.
But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ my rest in me. 2 cor 2:9-10

In all things, when I was fully reliant on God, even in the little details of life, I became more and more aware of just how sovereign God was. In the little blessings of finding volunteer opportunities, to finding a loving and solid church; the faithfulness of God to His children is all the more evident.

My encouragement to you is this:

Do not let life pass you by, do not waste the opportunities God has placed in your life, and more importantly do not neglect the hardships, and sufferings that have seemingly swallowed you up. In all these things we are to "Count it". Even in the transitions, the uncertainty, shows us how much control we lack, and that we need to rely fully and completely on God.

Count it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result in you, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:2-5

Prop 8 overturned.. now what?

One of the recent events within our state has been the overturn of Proposition 8, which stated that marriage was between a man and a woman. Biblically this is a sound law, morally right, but socially unaccepted. It has been seen as bigoted, prejudice and altogether hateful. In light of Prop 8 being overruled, many people are overjoyed, but as Christians, how are we to respond?

To address this Kevin DeYoung's posted several specifics, here are a couple stood out to me:

5. We must not be afraid to talk about homosexuality. Don’t be silenced by Christians calling for umpteen more years of dialogue or those who say you need at least one gay friend before you can open your mouth. The Bible speaks openly about sexuality and we must not be embarrassed to open God’s word. BUT when we do speak we must do so with broken hearts not bulging veins. A calm spirit and a broken heart are keys to not being tuned out immediately.

9. No gay jokes. None. It doesn’t help our witness and they’re not funny. Plus, the more we laugh at sin the more it gets normalized.

12. We must be people of hope not despair. We know the Lord and he knows us. This is not the worst crisis in the history of mankind. Homosexuality is sinful, but God specializes in sin. Look at what he’s done with us.