Making Himself Nothing . . .

I definitely fall prey to being too familiar with the Christmas story for it to have an impact on me every year. Every year, I have to work to get myself into the proper mindset for worship, and remember the immensity of what actually took place at the Incarnation. This year, I have had some help. I've watched The Nativity Story, the movie about Jesus' birth that came out several years ago. The scene where Mary gives birth to Jesus really struck me. Jesus, the Lord of the universe, was born by the ordinary human way, and that in the poorest possible conditions. God truly became flesh. What amazing humility! If God made Himself nothing for us, how much more should we be humble as we seek to serve Him and those He put in our lives!

 Merry Christmas to you all! Christ is born!

~Mac

On Presents

Why do we give presents to each other on Christmas day?

I am going to try not to turn this into a rant about the commercialization of Christmas. I just want to honestly explore that question.

On our birthdays, people usually give us presents. Why? Usually it's to show us they love us, care about us or appreciate us. So why do we give people presents on someone else's birthday? I can't really find a reason other than to share God's love, but why would we only do that on one day of the year? Why not make the act of sharing God's love through gifts something that we do throughout the year?

If we want to be consistent in our birthday gift giving, we should give Jesus gifts on His birthday. He doesn't need anything we can offer Him, but He asks us to offer Him worship and service. I think we should use this Christmas season to rededicate ourselves to God and to offer worship to Him.

When we have birthdays, the focus is on us. It is a celebration of our life up to this point. When Christmas rolls around, the focus is often on gifts and gift-giving. How many stressed out holiday shoppers are out there, scrambling to buy everything they need to give before the holiday comes? The focus should not be on the gifts; it should be on the ultimate Gift and the Giver.

I am absolutely not judging anyone who gives gifts on Christmas. If you can give and receive gifts without losing focus on the real reason for the season, more power to you! I am also definitely not advocating not celebrating Christmas. I believe that it is a very important and meaningful holiday that deepens our relationship with Christ. I am simply trying to provide some food for thought and hopefully help the body of Christ to become more like Him.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Christmas gift-giving?

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #5 + Going Off Gluten Week 2

I figured these two topics are related. This will also help me avoid the egregious sin of posting twice in a day.

I made a family favorite muffin recipe this past week - raisin bran muffins! I prepared the dough on Saturday and we baked a fresh batch for Monday breakfast and this morning's breakfast. They're so much better fresh :-)

The ingredients. A box of raisin bran, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda!

And the finished product!

Unfortunately I couldn't have any this go-around. After finishing one week of gluten-free dieting, I have noticed some slight changes that could be seen as improvements. Whatever those changes may signify, I'm going to do at least another week without gluten. Thanks to Mom, I now have some great gluten-free alternatives for breakfast, lunch and snacks: gluten-free nuts and fruit granola and gluten-free pretzels. And to get me through the Christmas treat season, we're going to make a batch of gluten-free brownies. :-)

~Mac

Going off Gluten

As some of you know, I've been experiencing stomach pain, food sensitivites, and other GI-related issues for a few years now. I've had all of the tests run, and they all came back negative. But I'm still having issues! All this is not to complain, just to fill in the background. :-) I am trying a week of removing gluten from my diet. My symptoms do seem to fit celiac disease, and one of Mom's friends just had a false negative for celiac, so I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens! I did feel a little bit better yesterday (day 1), but I'm not feeling good so far today. It's probably just because my body has to adjust to not having that diet element in my system. We shall see :-)

If anyone has tips or recipes or advice about the gluten-free diet, please let me know!

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #4

Last Saturday I decided to make pineapple coconut bread.

Chopped walnuts give the bread more texture and heartiness.

They took a while to completely bake, and they may be a bit too brown, but at least they rose this time! :-) We had them for breakfast yesterday. They were OK, but I couldn't really taste the pineapple or coconut :-/ Ah well! You win some and you lose some.

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #3: Foiled Again!

Today, since I made muffins last week, I decided to go with bread. I made some simple cinnamon raisin bread.

Cinnamon!

And raisins! Yum yum! :-)

Our trusty Bosch mixer churning up the ingredients!

When I put the dough into the pans, I thought there was something wrong. The bread just didn't rise and get fluffy. When they were done rising and baking, they were still the same height as when they were raw! Then I realized: I had been duped once again by the dreaded gluten-free wheat! :facepalm: We had accidentally bought some a while ago and I ground a bunch of it and put it into my bread, thinking it was hard white wheat (that was the label on the bucket it was in :-P). Ah well, at least there's still the same amount of food in each loaf! We will still enjoy our "power bread" (so-called because of the massive energy in each small slice :-) )

~Mac