The best brownies ever!

1 box of Betty Crocker® Triple Chunk Brownie Mix
1 box of Betty Crocker® Cookie Brownie Bars Mix
Mix the Triple Chunk mix first as directed on the box and fill the bottom of pan. Then mix the brownie mix from the cookie brownie box as directed. Spread the brownie mix on top of the other brownie mix in pan.
In a separate bowl mix the cookie mix as directed. Take spoon size pieces of cookie mix and drop them around the pan on top of the brownie mix.
Bake at 325◦F until you can stick a fork in it and only cooked brownie comes out on the fork. Don’t wait until it is so cooked that nothing comes out on the fork. Let stand one hour! This requires PATIENTS.

While I'm Waiting

You are standing in the back of the sanctuary after Sunday service full of joy from hearing your pastor preach a cross centered sermon. From the corner of your eye you see a brother you have never met before, making his way toward you. You quickly look around to make sure he is not looking at the girl behind you, but when you turn back around he is standing right in front of you. “Hi my name is Todd. What’s your name?” And in that moment when he is smiling at you waiting for your reply, your heart skips a beat. Your mind is full of so many questions. “Is he really talking to me? Is he ‘The One’? Could I marry him? I wonder how many kids he wants. I hope not too many. What are his parents like?...”
As you begin to imagine your future with him, you tell him your name all the while not letting on that you have his entire future mapped out for him if he will just propose today. Now that he knows your name he proceeds to tell you that he just joined the church and his Care Group leaders have encouraged him to invite people, he doesn’t know, over to their home for lunch. After he gives you the address and time of lunch he moves on to ask a few other brothers and sisters in Christ to come too. Then it dawns on you that your assumptions that he wanted to marry you just because he introduced himself, is wrong. He does not want to marry you. Of course, he just met you. He just wants to be your brother.
So I know I exaggerated a bit with my depiction of the thoughts of a single woman but, let’s be honest ladies. How many times have you done this? Countless, I am sure. The truth is that our world is fallen and because of this our view of men, and how our relationships with men should look, is skewed. We, as women, think that the only relationship we could or should have with a single brother in Christ is one ending up in marriage. This is just not true. We are called to do much more for our brother’s in Christ.
One of the saddest things about the family of God is that it is made up of a lot of only children who don’t have any experience with siblings. In my case, my only brother is fifteen years older than me and when he was a legal adult moved far, far away. I have had little experience in forming relationships with a brother. This is where I feel single women are at a loss. We do not have the experience or the know-how to interact with our single brothers in Christ, because many of us either did not grow up with brothers or did not have siblings at all. And let’s face it, how many that did grow up with brothers actually had a biblical understanding of family to help their relationship form healthily. This lack of experience can cause great miss-communications between sisters and brothers in Christ. With a biblical world view of family and a few arrows in the right direction we can avoid many of these miss-communications.
Let’s look at what God’s family looks like. For this I will have to borrow from Pastor John Piper. This excerpt is from a sermon of Pastor Piper’s that helped me immensely with finding a biblical view of family. (Single in Christ: A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters)
"In the created order that God put in place before sin was in the world, and in the covenantal order that God put in place with the Jewish people from Abraham to the coming of Christ, “God is primarily building his covenant people through the mechanism of procreation.” (Barry Danylak, “A Biblical-Theological Perspective on Singleness) God was focusing his covenant-keeping faithfulness mainly on an ethnic people. Therefore, being married and having offspring was of paramount importance for one’s name and one’s inheritance and for the preservation of God’s covenant people.
So when we come now to the New Testament, Jesus makes clear that his people—the true people of God—will be produced not by physical procreation but by spiritual regeneration. So he says to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3)."
With this stance on family we can go on to say that our brothers in Christ truly are our brothers. I think at this point then we must ask ourselves: what do we do with our brothers in Christ? Well the answer is in the question; whatever we would do with our natural brothers. I know it is a simple answer, and if you are anything like me though you are saying to your self, “That doesn’t help me much. I have had little experience in forming relationships with a brother. What does a sister do with a brother?” Anybody have any answers?

Revival!

This blog is being revived! When you read from this blog you will notice more than one writing style. This is a blog for all of the protestant "nuns" living in a particular nunnery together. No I will not tell you where we live, do not ask again. I am working on a book about brother/sister relationships with in the Family of God, and that is mostly what I will post about. The other "nuns" that I live with will post about what is on their hearts and minds at the time as well. I do hope it will be something enjoyed by many.

A New Kind of Family

In these recent years, there has been a massive battle raging in America, a battle over family. And evangelical Christians are fighting valiantly to preserve traditional or biblical visions of what family is - one man and one woman who fulfill complementary roles and raise their offspring to be good and virtuous. I am truly grateful for the many men and women who have raised their voices against ungodliness. But my fear is that in the midst of the fight for a traditional family, many Christians have forgotten that they are members of a new kind of family, one that does not fit any prior mold. But I will not tax you with my thoughts when John Piper has preached so persuasively about this new family.

So, please listen or read, contemplate, and feel free to discuss.

Single in Christ: A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters

Facing

Now you've read about the people, here are the faces. Clockwise from the top: Leah, Lindsey, Courtney, the Silent Nun, Jamaica, Brittney, Addy, Jes, and Clayton.

"How I Became a Protestant Nun" - to now

The third and final installment of my review:

"And we needed women to move into the house. I was the first woman to move in after the transition, and Leah made two. But we needed eight women, and it is hard to disciple women if no one is living in the ministry house. So began what has been a five month test of faith as we struggled to pay bills, find women to live in the house, convince the investor to continue his support and ultimately to trust the Lord to provide the means and women to fill the house if it was his desire for this ministry to continue. I cannot deny that there were times when we were faced with the possibility that Maison de la Vie might close. Brittney was the first woman to move in, and then came Addy. And there were four of us. Not long after came Lindsey, who works at the Jefferson Street Baptist Center. Until a couple of weeks ago there were five of us.

Here too came a lesson of love, faith and patience. Here were five women who (except for Brittney and me) had never met before we moved in together and covenanted together to be a family to one another in Christ. Familial intimacy does not happen immediately or by chance, especially amongst total strangers. And in a house the size of Maison de la Vie, it can be so easy for people to share the same space and never see each other. Thus there was quite a bit naturally working against the formation of strong relationships. But God intervened here as well and answered the prayers of many people. At some point this fall, the barrier among all of us seemed to crumble and love and trust have filled the gap. If this all happened because we were sick together or mere coincidentally with our illnesses, it is clear to me that something changed at that time; and I am convinced that the Lord uses many means to accomplish his purposes and answer the prayers of his people.

But a house with a large mortgage and room for eight to ten women will not survive long if only populated by five women. And so we continued to pray for more women to move. And once again, the Lord has answered prayer. Jamaica moved into the house the week before Christmas; this itself was so very good. But God will continually work to boggle my mind. For the Sunday before Christmas, Ryan announced in church that the house is looking for more residents, and immediately after the service, Neil came up to me and told that one of his co-workers was looking for a place to live. I told him that to have her call me. That very afternoon, Courtney did call, and we set a meeting for the next day. We met up at Taco Bell and talked about the house and started to get to know each other's stories. By the time we parted, Courtney seemed very excited about the house, but wanted to take some time to think and pray. A couple of hours later she called with her decision to move into the house. By that Sunday, she was moving in.

I must confess that while I knew we needed and did pray for more women, I was somewhat anxious about the change this would bring in the house dynamics as we all would have to repeat the process of learning to love total strangers. And once again I have been shown how futile it is to worry, for God has already been working in our relationships. Evidence of grace abounds everywhere I look as I witness all of us encouraging one another and being encouraged and getting to know each other (not that things have been perfectly smooth. Put seven sinners in one house together, and there will be problems, and there are kinks to be worked out as we figure out how to function as a house. But overall, the good far outweighs the bad. And this too is a test of patience and grace toward one another.)

The Lord's crazy providence was demonstrated in one more way this week [New Year's week]. When Courtney moved in, we did not have a mattress for her. We have several beds, but no mattresses. And I really had no idea where we were going to find one – not that I doubted we would. Courtney moved in on Sunday, and on Monday, out of the blue, Adam sent me a message on facebook, asking if we still needed a mattress. Absolutely yes!

So that brings me to today, the first day of Anno Domini 2009, where I cannot but praise my God in Christ that He truly is faithful and loving far beyond what I or anyone else deserved, and He works in so many ways to do his people good, eliciting praise from their lips. Is life easy, smooth and pleasant? Oftentimes no. As I think on the stories of each woman at Maison de la Vie, there is much pain and brokenness. But we are a broken people praying to the God who has known has known what it means to be broken, and we know he is not distant. And as I look back on 2008, I can only see the miraculous providence of God everywhere, both in the joy and in the striving."

Review Part 2 - or "How I Became a Protestant Nun"

Here is the second part of my journal entry from the end/beginning of the year.

"But the biggest change of all I have only mentioned in passing. I said that I moved twice this year, which is an excessive amount for anyone. But it is the reason for the second move that still boggles my mind. Late in July, while I was in the middle of the application process at UPS, one night at VBS (I don't remember the date. Like I said, I don't have a good notion of time) Jeff King came up to me and asked me what I thought about Old Louisville. I did not have a clue what was coming, so I non-nonchalantly replied that I really like the neighborhood and had lived there once. And then he asked me if I would be interested in living there again. At this point I was thoroughly baffled, until Jeff explained that there was this ministry house called Maison de la Vie and that the elders had suggested that I take on the role of head of house. Thinking back, I am still amazed and can barely comprehend it, except for the fact that I am sitting here, writing all of this in that ministry house called Maison de la Vie. I mulled over Jeff's words for a while not quite sure what to think. I hadn't ever sought out ministry to college students and had just moved two months prior to a new apartment. Later, I talked with Ryan Fullerton and found out more about the house and the situation. Here was a house that existed to be a purposeful community of single Christian women, seeking intentional discipleship and living to minster to each other and to people outside the house—all under the authority of the local church. In this house was the combination of everything that I love—teaching, discipling, showing hospitality and cultivating a beautiful home. And the elders of Immanuel asked me to lead it. Whatever possessed them to do it, I may never understand. Not that I object, mind you. But it seems to me that there are other women more qualified to teach, lead women in showing hospitality and who have desired this sort of ministry more than I have - tremendously godly women.

1 January 2009 – I was interrupted by a few things, and so now continue in my meanderings over the past year. I had not set out to lead any sort of ministry. Actually, most of the ministry in which I have been involved has been of behind-the-scenes variety—nursery, ESL, sermon recording, running the projector and other stuff like that. What was there to recommend me for this I am not sure. But this I do know, whatever was there could only be by the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, for there is nothing of myself to qualify me for anything except the wrath of God. So I praise Him and Him only because He is the author and giver of all good things. And I am reminded that even when I am short-sighted, blind to His work, He is still faithful to sanctify His own - to sanctify me. So this that I cannot comprehend must have come only from His hand and tend only to His glory.

(Interjection: forgot to put this in the journal entry, but it is worth recalling God's sovereignty in orchestrating my circumstances to allow me to accept the role. When I moved last spring, it had first been my goal to find a totally new apartment with Anne Kirsten. We looked for a good long while but couldn't discover anything that would suit. In the end, I into an apartment at Village Manor with another girl who already held the lease. Because I did not move in with Anne, I had no lease to which I was tied and was therefore free to move at any time.)

Within a couple of days, Ryan Fullerton and I met with Ross McGary, Lisa McGary, Jason and Donna Shaw, and Jes and Clayton Rothwell. Within about two weeks, I moved into Maison de la Vie. During the whole process, I met with Lisa a couple of times and this woman named Leah Proctor who was recommended to me as a co-leader (I am so glad I listened to Lisa and Jes's advice).

I must emphasize that at this point I was jumping into something about which I had almost no prior knowledge, head first, body and soul, at the same time as I was going through the process of becoming a supervisor at UPS. The month of August was so very hazy as I made the transition in my job, moved, worked on plans for the house Bible study and generally had no clue what I was doing. I was simultaneously incredibly stressed out and was walking through life as in a cloud. So much new, and I was clueless about what was happening."